


The Infinity Gems

by BrytteMystere



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Southern Vampire Mysteries - Charlaine Harris, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: AU, F/M, Infinity Gems, Three girls find the Infinity Gems at their most desperate moment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrytteMystere/pseuds/BrytteMystere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sookie Stackhouse ran from a familiar monster...<br/>Anna Marie D'Ancanto sees her life destroyed by an uncanny revelation...<br/>Young Rin Tohsaka makes an almost fatal mistake...</p><p>Are the mysterious gems a miracle or a concealed curse?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Space and Soul

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Frozen](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/117538) by Chezu. 



> My most sincere “thank you” to Quicksilver1881, my beta!

Sookie Stackhouse wasn't thinking clearly.

One could argue that she just acted her age, for once, or that she simply had the right instinct as to run away when _that monster_ started to approach, knowing her parents would ignore her warnings, go on to their planned date, and leave her alone with _him_.

Maybe she just remembered what had happened to her cousin, Hadley, and didn't want to go through the same fate.

With or without excuses, the little six year old was running for her life, into the woods that surrounded her grandmother's house. Said grandmother was currently in one of her _“Descendants of the Glorious Dead”_ meetings, and wouldn't be back soon enough for Sookie to risk herself, alone with Uncle Bartlett.

Her purple dress seemed to be getting caught in every single plant she left behind, and not for the first time did she wish to have had friends with which she could have stayed, like her elder brother, Jason, who had been happily left in Hoyt Fortenberry's house. But then, she was the town's weirdo, the freak everyone liked to humiliate from time to time. It was a given she wouldn't have friends.

_Nothing better than an isolated freak, right?_

Her _own family_ would have preferred to just shut her out completely, regardless of the smiles and the kind words they would utter at her face.

See, it didn't matter how good they were at acting like they actually cared for her, because she could _hear_ them. Their _inner voices_ , their very _thoughts_. The books she had read about it had called what she could do “telepathy”. She just referred to it as her _curse_. It didn't matter how sweet someone acted, she could always see under the mask.

_And gods, what a terrible curse it was!_

Running, running, she was leaving everything behind, not a single ounce of food on her. Sookie had just left without preamble. She had _felt_ him reach her hearing range, his disgusting thoughts polluting her young mind, and she had started to run, deaf to her parent's shouts, like a leaf in the wind, getting lost in the wilderness, the setting sun barely allowing her enough light to see her way.

Sookie was crying, of course, pieces of her life circling her mind, as always, taunting her, hurting her soul in every possible way. She was six years old, but her soul was older. _Oh, so much older_. After all, could you ever _imagine_? Knowing everything anyone in a ten kilometres radius just happened to have thought about? Without any way whatsoever to stop their thoughts from entering your mind, as if you were locked up in a soundproof room with a thousand radios, all in different, changing frequencies, some louder than others, all hurting your poor, poor ears? And _that_ wasn't counting those who preferred to think in _images_. Telepathy hadn't any kind of parental control, either.

Most of the time, Sookie Stackhouse was too lost in the sea of frequencies, of thoughts, of images, of fragmented dreams, to properly interact with her surroundings. Thus, she used to look like a drugged sea lion suffering migraines on a daily basis, and her classmates liked to make fun of her, either by voiced taunts, or more physical proofs of their obvious dislike.

On the bright side, she had become very adept at dodging objects thrown at her person, and the fastest runner in town. On the not so bright side, her mind was such a chaotic disaster that merely becoming aware of her _own self_ was a complicated task only achievable in the deepest part of the woods, where only the incomprehensible feels from the plants and the animals bothered her, to a much lesser extent that human thoughts ever could.

She felt something akin to _peace_ in the woods, alone with all that greenery surrounding her, like the motherly embrace she had never been able to get, or what she supposed being safe in the womb would feel like. There was something ancient, in the woods, that somehow, she knew, looked for her. She had never seen anything, but she had always been able to _feel_ it. Just there, like a warm blanket.

Not today. Not tonight.

The warm feeling wasn't there, as if her mysterious magical protector had left, and as she crossed the greenery, it didn't feel inviting at all. Somehow her safe place had stopped being her safe place, and she had no clue as to _why._ However, her legs were getting tired -her shoes weren't exactly proper to run with-, and her dress and hair were an absolute mess. Leaves and twigs were intertwined in her previously neat long-tailed hairdo. Her purple dress was in strips.

The mad race had left her with bloody lines decorating her face, from the harsh hits of the plants on her way through the woods.

But in the end, she had _made it_. She had reached the heart of the woods. Her forest clearing, the safest place her mind could conjure. Even if her warm feeling had vanished from the major part of the woods, she could still feel it there, like a warm breeze around her.

Sookie knew Uncle Bartlett wouldn't be able to reach her there, in mind nor physically. The forest clearing was sacred. No other had been able to reach her there, even the cute animals. The plants, too, were different there. More exotic. It was like something out of a fairytale, somewhere only she could go, for reasons she didn't want to know or rationalize.

Finally feeling safe, the little girl allowed herself to fall on her knees, breathing the magical air like someone who had been about to drown, her hands caressing the exotic greenery around her.

 _For the very first time on that day, she felt **safe**_ **.**

* * *

  _The air was hot, and breathing was hard, but Anna Marie D'Ancanto couldn't be bothered to care._

 _**She had to escape** _.

The D'Ancantos had moved from Italy in 1912, running from the impeding war, maybe thinking they would be safe in the New World. Hard times went by, but Anna Marie's Great Grandfather hit the jackpot. He had been clever, and cunning enough as to reach important positions of power in the USA, starting to amass a fortune that his descendants would only increase, thanks to many business enterprises. Thus, Anna Marie was raised in a rich family, with everything that it implied.

The D'Ancantos were traditional, strict and disciplined. They tried to engrave this principles into their only daughter, without much success, at least in everything related to their traditions.

Anna Marie was a young girl, clever like only herself and more cunning than most, but lonely.

_Oh, so terribly lonely._

In her hectic life, the only contact she had was with her tutors, and with the more often than not snobbish other pupils of said tutors, on the tedious social meetings some of them liked to organize.

Her parents, being more prone to the old, Victorian way of raising children, only met her during her tests, to evaluate her progress, or when she was needed as an extra decoration on her father's arm for publicity or some boring social party they were invited to. Her father at least had the excuse of being an important businessman who rarely spent more than a month in the country. Her mother, instead, just avoided her like the plague, lost in her luxurious life, trying to keep up a youthful façade in which her daughter, living testimony of her own years, and her decaying beauty, couldn't possibly fit.

Her birthdays were more for her parents good publicity than a celebration of her new year of life.

Most days, when the sun finally set and her tutors left her finally alone, she would stare at her bedroom's ceiling for hours, her body too exhausted to move, wondering what would her parents ever _do_ if they ever found her dead somewhere. The most self-deprecating par t of her thought they would use it as a way to improve their social standing, _oh the poor grieving parents. Now they understand so many injustices in this world of ours, you should really give them your love and adoration!_

_Ah, as if they weren't already sought after by most parts of the USA's sycophants!_

The only bright sides of her life were her violin, and Cody Mason, after poor Susan's death.

Susan had been her nanny. Or, as she preferred to believe, her soul mother.

If god existed and had given her such a distorted family, Marie liked to think in Susan as god's way to say sorry.

She knew many people out there were in worse situations than her, but in her opinion, her life was a different kind of bad. Not in the physical way, not in a torturous way.

It all just left her... empty.

She was but a doll in her tutor's hands, a playable character, a cute decoration for her father, a hated mirror for her mother. She hated it. When Susan had been alive, her good old southern nanny, she could feel motherly love, even if she wasn't really her mother.

In fact, she had started to play the violin to make her nanny happy. Susan had lost her son to an accident with a car -or so had little three year old Marie heard-, and so Anna Marie had done her best to try and help her dear nanny get over her grief.

Susan's son, Michael, had been a promising violinist, and so the girl had begged and begged for a violin tutor, getting it after having announced said wish aloud in her fourth birthday party, because refusing such an easy gift in public would have been detrimental to their public appearance.

It had been hard at first, but eventually her violin lessons had been her favourite time in the day, followed by little shows for her dearest nanny, who could only look at her with tearful eyes, until she placed the violin back into its case, moment when Susan hugged her as if the world was about to end.

She had wondered if her playing was really that bad as to make Susan cry every time, and so Marie had worked hard to improve.

It took years for her to feel comfortable and sure of her abilities with the violin, but Marie managed to learn how to play a popular nursery rhyme Susan used to sing for her without help or support. It would be a melody engraved in her soul, something she would always be able to play, no matter how much time without practising past.

And she played, and Susan cried again. But this time, when the grief stricken child asked in a trembling voice if she was that bad as to make her cry, Susan smiled, hugged her, and told her she cried because her music was beautiful. That she could see, what a brilliant future she had as a violinist, like her little Michael had.

And when Susan cried again, Marie knew that it was for Michael, her lost son, the brilliant violinist, and wondered silently if by trying to help Susan she had been torturing her, reminding her of her lost son every day... Marie wondered, too, how could that feel, a grief so strong it transcended so many years -four years were a very long time, for a child...

* * *

When Marie was twelve years old, she met Cody Mason.

Cody Mason was the major's only son, and so far, the only person who had tried to approach Marie for herself, rather than merely being the heir to the D'Ancantos. He was rather cute, blonde, blue eyed and tanned. But the most important part of him was his personality, that strange adorkable aura he gave off, had somehow kept her grounded, and filled her with butterfly-like feelings in her chest.

Maybe he was god's way of saying “sorry”, because the very day she met him, Susan died.

Her parents never truly told her what had happened, or how. No. Her father had called her into his study, and she had went, all bubbly inside, wanting to run to Susan and tell her all about Cody's eyes, and how cute he was, and his adorkableness... Yet, when she entered Milo D'Ancanto's study, and saw the stern look on his steel-grey eyes, Marie knew something bad had happened.

“Susan is dead. She won't come back. And no one will replace her. You're 12 years old, Anna Marie. Almost a proper lady. Thus, you'll have to do things by yourself from now on. If you really need advice, Albert will be a proper guide. Be careful, though. He's the main butler, so you mustn't disturb him for pointless things. Now, go. You have your fencing lesson in less than an hour.”

_So cold..._

Marie had walked to her room in a daze, almost unable to comprehend what had been told to her.

_It couldn't be..._

_Susan... Susan couldn't be..._

Her mind refused the very idea. And so she refused that idea. Susan couldn't be dead, and so she wasn't. But even if she was determined to surround herself in her delusions, she could already feel a huge gap in her heart, Susan-shaped.

_Suddenly, the world was so cold..._

Even in her grief, life went on. She wasn't allowed a proper mourning time, and so the agony of Susan's death stretched for years, only shown in her private moments.

* * *

 

Cody, who had been relegated to the depths of her mind after her loss, became an emotional crutch for her, over the following months.

But as if god hadn't deemed her punished enough for her luxurious life, that Christmas would be the setting for a moment that changed her life completely.

_Her first kiss..._

It all happened in her fencing tutor's garden.

Merely five months had passed since Susan's death, and yet there she was, forced to go to a stupid social meeting, when all she wanted to do was to curl herself in a tight ball and cry for her lost nanny. Her soul mother.

At the very first chance, she ducked out of the party, into the close woods, without knowing her dear friend, Cody, had followed her.

Marie walked until the house couldn't be seen, and sat on a mouldy log, her fingers playing with her hair, like every time she was thinking about something unpleasant, when Cody finally chose to make his presence known.

“You know, you usually do that thing with your hair, and suddenly turn gloomy when no one is looking at you...”

She couldn't contain a little shout, her heart beating like hummingbird wings, before being able to control herself.

“Damn it, Cody, don't do that!”

He smiled, sitting right next to her, not caring about the mould tainting his designer white jeans, biting his lip as he stared at her.

“What?” did she want to ask “Do I have something on my face?”

But she knew, she just _knew_ what he wanted. And so she smiled, closed her eyes and waited.

His lips caressed hers, and for twenty seconds, everything was perfect. She felt elated, her skin electrified, and a shiver went down her back, until...

_She was so stealthy, ducking out of the party, and with a smile on his lips he followed her, because he knew that even if she pretended to be alright, she wasn't._

_He loved her personality as a whole, the way she somehow always knew what to say and when, and yet how she would stutter every single time he touched her, as if she wasn't used to have contact. And her body wasn't at all bad, either. His mother had told him many times Anna Marie D'Ancanto had good hips, that she would grow and be a very beautiful girl, even if he could only be amazed at her athletic built, how she could always win at every competition that didn't outright need brute force. It was a stark contrast to her social awkwardness, the way she seemed unable to stand being around many people for more than a few minutes._

_Oh, but her eyes were so beautiful... He felt he could get lost in those green depths..._

_Oh gods, Cody..._

When she finally managed to get away from him, to cut off their connection, he was sickly pale, and her mind felt like a deeply used drum. Memories, feelings, experiences that weren't her drifted through her mind, confusing her, taking her breath away, and she run. She run, far, far away, back home, back home, _back home_...

_But, where was her home?_

She ran, and kept running, even if her legs were about to give up, even if her messy mind couldn't even start to figure out where was “home”.

She lost herself in the greenery. Something told her she would be safe there.

* * *

 Sookie was calmly stroking the strange plant that had been growing around her knees, in what could have been minutes or hours.

The sun had completely set, and the moon now shone through the trees, turning everything a shade of silver.

But her peace was shattered by loud shouts, and the following sound spoke of a battle, even if nothing could be seen by her fearful eyes. The sounds were getting closer, and right at her back a bright light shone, drawing if only for a second a big translucent door. Before she was even able to turn around, a purple bullet was shot, going through her and stopping in her heart.

Sookie Stackhouse was barely able to mutter a muffled scream, and then everything she could see was green, the green of the grass at her feet, as her body had collapsed face down on the ground.

* * *

 Marie was barely able to breathe, finally allowing herself to fall down on her knees, face turned to the sky she could see between the trees. She was crying, trying to find her way back to herself, lost in memories she shouldn't have.

She could remember, even then, her father's cold voice during a dinner long time ago, when news about mutants were just being known.

_“Such scum! To let them live is a blasphemy! Every proper christian should team up and do everything in their power to annihilate these threats to humanity. Be as it may! If I ever meet one of those monsters, I'll kill them with my bare hands!”_

Eh. So, she really had no home to go back to, did she? The very moment she had been discovered as a mutant, she had stopped being a D'Ancanto.

Now, she was nothing but a wandering rogue, something that shouldn't be allowed to exist.

_A little rogue, lost in the crowd, like so many others..._

She would wander then, like Cain after his punishment. She would wander, lost, but for that night, only for that night, she would allow herself to sleep in the woods.

* * *

Marie woke up, alarmed, without being sure why.

The reason, was answered soon enough, by incomprehensible shouts, and beams of light coming out of nowhere, water rising without any possible logical explanation, and even if she wanted to run away, the mud made it impossible.

The earth was swallowing her, and she was way too terrified to shout for help.

It wasn't needed, but she couldn't possibly know that.

Marie was down to her hips when a disturbingly beautiful man collided with her, his hand going through her chest without meaning to, as his strength was far superior to her body's, and all she could see was a pair of baffled green eyes, unnatural green eyes, and then everything turned green, a sickly green colour, while a burning heat where the man had traversed her chest started to burn her whole body, travelling through her arteries and veins.

Yet, she couldn't scream. Marie couldn't see the man -her whole sight had been taken over by that green light-, but she felt his hand on her mouth, before they both disappeared from the forest altogether.


	2. Reality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know not many people will have read "Fate/Stay Night". I must say, too, that this fic is mainly directed to the fans of the Marvel verse. Thus said, this chapter will be very long, as it involves Rin Tohsaka and the Nasuverse. As Rin gave a magnificent summary at the start of the Visual Novel, I'll be using many of her explanations here. This will not happen usually, as I want to make this fic as unique as possible, but necessary, as the VN is way too complex. I thereby apologize for the need of the canon material. Thanks again to Quicksilver1881, my dearest beta.

Rin Tohsaka stared at the corpse, unable to move. The deed was done, but a part of her refused to acknowledge it. Thus, her mind went backwards, searching, for the moments where it was easy to ignore this person. When she was blissfully ignorant of her duty...

* * *

  _This is a story from ten years ago._

… A war had started.

Not a war between countries, but a war between people. Even if the only ones at war were seven people.

In a situation like this, the word “war” should be unsuitable, but here it's a different story, as the ones in conflict are _magi_. The seven _magi_ , each from a different faction, had started to compete for unknown reasons and killed each other in unknown ways.

Her father was one of them.

He too was in a position to kill or be killed. He must have known more keenly than she did that his time was near.

He told her about the heirloom jewels, the jewels inherited from the master, and how to manage the basement.

“ _Rin, the Holy Grail will appear eventually. It is our duty as the Tohsaka family to win it. More importantly, if you want to be a magus, you can't avoid it”_

He patted her head for the second time in her whole life, and that was the end.

That was the last time she saw the man who entered the Fourth Holy Grail War as a master and died. The man who was her teacher as well as her father.

“ _Take care, father”_

She knew she was on the verge of crying, but Rin shed no tears.

 

She loved him.

He was a great father and a great magus.

Among magi, there are only obstinate people. In the whole world, she couldn't believe that anyone had a better character that his.

* * *

  _Even if he had been too naïve **then**._

_Even if his choice left her heart in shreds._

_Because **that person** was erased from their home, and years later..._

_Years later that choice would return to haunt her._

* * *

 He taught her as a teacher and loved her as a father.

_She had to be the perfect heir..._

That's why she decided...

To choose her path according to what he left her in the end.

Because he left her with the words of a magus, not of a father.

That is why at that moment, her path was determined.

“ _I'll do my best to be a proper magus.”_

It's only natural for a student to follow the words of their teacher.

* * *

 When the Fifth Holy Grail War was about to start, Rin Tohsaka had been _excited_.

She didn't show it, of course, as it was the custom of the Tohsaka family to act with composure and elegance at all times. Taking a custom like that seriously, she used to reflect to herself, had to mean that her family had originated from a very high-class background. Proof of that was merely owning her old western-styled mansion, and on top of it, being part of a bloodline able to use the power of “magic”.

It wasn't as if she could brag about it -she couldn't even talk about it.

* * *

  _Magic is just as it sounds,_ she would explain to an imaginary receiver. One that she would have to kill afterwards, or just erase their memory.

She would say that magus were, like, _people who do strange things by casting spells._

_Heretics that hide themselves from the world, prohibited from standing out and even if they weren't, they would rather stay at home studying magic._

_On top of that_ , s he would say, her right hand up in the air, with only her index finger pointing upwards, every single other finger in a tight grip, her remaining arm locked with the other by her hand on her elbow, which a redheaded boy with hazel eyes would call “Tohsaka's teaching posture” , _the word “sorcerer” would be inaccurate._

_There are only **five** sorcerers in the world. Those able to do things no other could do, beyond the ability of modern science... The ones who did such “miracles” are the ones called sorcerers._

_Miracles that can't be achieved, regardless of the time or the effort... those are called sorcery._

_One would be much happier just going to school and becoming a normal adult, because studying magic it's kind of meaningless._

_Human technology has been leading the way ahead of magic._

_Still, magic has good points._

_As there are things possible only through science, there are things only possible through magic._

 

_The master of the Tohsaka family had said that if science is moving toward the future, magic is moving toward the past. Something about the past and the future ending up at the same place, everything always running toward the Zero point._

It was to be expected from Zelretch, the Second sorcerer who wielded the power of the _Kaleidoscope_ ( the True Magic, the _Sorcery_ that allowed the operation of parallel worlds), such a troubling lesson.

* * *

 Rin had taken her red pendant, that morning of the last day of January.

It was an heirloom, that stored the equivalent of ten years of her magical energy.

See, the Tohsakas were very adept at the transformation of power, which was then put into jewels.

The only other thing she had gotten from her father was the Magic Crest of the Tohsaka family, which was engraved on her left arm. It was in essence the proof of the successor, like a tattoo condensing all the inherited magic of the Tohsaka family.

 

Even if she had woken up far too early for her liking (and she would only really realize this at her academy's door), she went on with her day.

It was a difficult balance, being a good student while trying not to be too social.  
It was her vanity… no, her conviction, that she had to be number-one both academically and physically.  
If she had to be a student, she wanted to be the best, and it would be unthinkable for her to dishonour the Tohsaka name.

_So that's why she was a perfect student, flawless in all aspects._

_(It was all so meaningless now...)_

At the same time, any magus whose identity was discovered had no choice but to eliminate the witness. She didn't want to do that, and thus her social life had to become a shallow one.

* * *

 She knew many things about the war she was going to be part of.

Many, but not all the things she would have known if her father had survived long enough.

 

“ _The ultimate ideal humans have created, the greatest human people have created._  
These are the heroes, the heroic spirits.  
And of course, since they are beyond human, they cannot be controlled by humans.  
A magus usually borrows their power only to mimic them.  
They can't summon the heroic spirits themselves.  
  
But the Holy Grail made that impossibility into reality.  
It summons the heroic spirit, beyond human control, and turns it into a familiar obedient to the Master.  
That nonsense is proof that the Holy Grail is almighty.  
  
And with the passing of years ignored, the heroic spirits are summoned. The most recent from a hundred years ago, the oldest from the ancient days.  
The seven heroic spirits obey each of the seven Masters, protect them, and eliminate the Masters of the enemy.  
Heroes from every age and country are revived into the present day, to kill one another for supremacy.  
That is why this ritual is called the Holy Grail War.

 _That form is their temporary name, and the way they exist in this world._  
The Holy Grail has furnished "classes" so that the heroic spirits may take form more easily, and it only summons the heroic spirits that match these classes.  
It's like a passport to the present as it sets up a role as a familiar in advance. By allowing the summoned heroic spirit to take on that role, it helps the spirit to take form.  
  
If there are seven Masters chosen by the Holy Grail, there are also seven Servants obeying those Masters.  
  
There are seven furnished classes:

_Knight of the sword, Saber._

_Knight of the Lance, Lancer._

_Knight of the bow, Archer._

_Mounted soldier, Rider._

_Magus, Caster._

_Silent killer, Assassin._

_And the mad warrior, Berserker._

_That is the Servant System._  
A summoning and contract with a heroic spirit beyond human control, to win the "miracle" beyond human grasp.  
The ultimate competition, held only on this ground, the one and the only Holy Grail War!”

* * *

  _The purple hair created a halo around the girl's head, her pale skin standing out even more against the dark colour scheme ._

_She still wore the red ribbon._

_Her first ribbon..._

_And after all those years, she died wearing it..._

Rin stopped that thought short.

She couldn't accept it yet. She wouldn't accept it yet.

“ _Aren't you going to stop me, Emiya-kun?”_

She had said those words, receiving only silence.

Why? Why? Why? She had wanted him to stop her. To tell her that what she was planning to do was barbaric...

No.

No.

No.

Rin Tohsaka isn't ready to admit that unforgivable crime.

_It all didn't matter._

_It was meaningless, all of it!_

She had summoned a Servant, choosing to be one of the seven Masters, to fulfil what she believed was her duty as the heir of the Tohsaka family. As the Second Owner of Fuyuki City, where said war would take part. She had to fight, for the well-being of the city she had to watch over, and for her pride as a Tohsaka.

Rin Tohsaka didn't have a wish at the start of the war.

Even when a mysterious shadow started to eat and eat Fuyuki's citizens, she hadn't had a wish.

 _Until **then**_.

She had wished, wished with all her heart, wished that Kirei Kotomine could save the person she hadn't been allowed to think of as her little sister since that terrible day, eleven years ago.

_"Yes. I had a sister a year younger than me... The declined Matou family had no hope of someone giving them a child for adoption.  
It's only natural for them to rely on the Tohsaka family, the ones they held a pact with for a long time."_

She had wished, quietly, keeping up with her family's motto and staying _elegant_ , keeping her _composure_. She had wished, while an icy feeling started to creep up into her heart, leaving her numb with every passing second, that Kirei would be able to save her.

And she had explained everything, every _single_ thing, to Shirou Emiya.

_It was the only thing she could do, waiting for the outcome of Kirei's operation._

She explained, to that red haired boy, who looked at her with his hazel eyes, to the boy whose heart she had recomposed with her powerful red pendant, as an anonymous gift to the girl her father had declared as _not her sister anymore_ , the connection between Rin Tohsaka and Sakura Matou.

“ _If Sakura can't be cured, I'll dispose of her, just like I would with any other Master gone rampant. I can't sit idly by while a magus indiscriminately attacks people. If Kirei can't treat Sakura, then I'll just have to get rid of her myself."_

 

_"Sakura is a child of the Matous. She stopped being my sister eleven years ago."_

She remembered, saying those words, and his silence.

He, too, had chosen his path. He would become a _superhero_ , turning his mind into steel, being thus able to sacrifice the minority for the sake of the majority.

He had chosen to follow his adoptive father's path. He had turned into Kiritsugu Emiya, _the Magus Killer_.

* * *

 Rin remembered Kirei's report.

It would be forever engraved in her mind, as she had felt her hopes, her _wishes_ , shattering. Her very heart was now covered in ice, and every breath was painful.

_She knew what she had to do._

_Everything ended then and there._

_At the end of that night, she would be the only living Tohsaka, quite literally speaking._

_Sakura had to be put down..._

 

Why? Why? Why? Why?

 

_"To put it simply, there is a poison, a worm, in Matou Sakura's body. The worm is called crest worm. It is like an artificial sanshi, the three corpses. Do you recognize this name?"_

_Sanshi._ A bug said to inhabit a human body that reports the person's evil deeds to the Judge of Hell.

“ _It was originally just a harmless parasite.  
It's a familiar that lives off of its host's magical energy. It is of the lowest rank of familiars, as it does nothing beyond telling its master whether or not its host still lives." _

She had known right away. _A monitoring device._ And most probably, of Zouken's creation.

_Who else but that old bastard would do something like that to Sakura?_

And Kirei, maybe just for the pleasure of seeing her suffer, had said aloud exactly what did that entail.

 

“ _The crest worm I explained earlier is undermining_ Sakura Matou's nerves.  
It must be the result of eleven years spent growing within her. The crest worm has turned into a nerve, like a Magic Circuit, and it has entangled with her own, swarming all throughout her body.  
It has transformed into her Magic Crest. Under normal circumstances it is suspended, having no effect on Sakura Matou' s body. But once activated, it will violate her nerves and will keep moving using her magical energy.  
That's what happened earlier. The crest worm roamed through her body, absorbing her magical energy.

_Had she remained in that state for half a day, she would certainly have died.  
The crest worm would suck all of her magical energy as its power, then eat her flesh as nutrition. It means she would have her body consumed after her magical energy was sucked dry." _

_"If you have a Magic Crest, you should well know how painful it is.  
Even the faintest trace of a foreign substance puts a human body through discomfort, and can even be life-threatening. Having another creature entwining its nerves with your own, moving within you, would easily be enough to kill you." _

 

She wanted to kill him. She wanted to rip his throat out, to make him stop talking, because every single word was a dagger to her heart.

Because such a thing had happened right under her nose, to the one known as her little sister, eleven years ago. To the girl who had worn the first ribbon Rin Tohsaka ever made, with her own magic, even if they had stopped calling each other “sister”. Even if they had barely talked at all in those long, long eleven years, that now seemed to weigh tons on her shoulders.

But at the same time, she knew she had to hear it. She had to her the full sentence, because it was her fault.

She would have to kill Sakura Matou, and it all was her fault.

Her fault, and her father's, because Tokiomi Tohsaka had been _too naïve_ , giving his unneeded child to Zouken Matou, hoping that the old bastard would make her his family's heir.

Because _she_ had abandoned Sakura. Even if she had always been watching her from afar, it only made it worse. She had never realized how much Sakura suffered under the Matou.

It had been so easy, to fool herself into thinking that Sakura was happy, if only to alleviate her own guilt...

_"……In that regard, I'm surprised Sakura Matou was conscious until just now.  
I do not know if Sakura Matou has a strong will, or if she is just used to the crest worm's activation. We will need to ask her if we want this answered." _

But Sakura Matou wouldn't regain consciousness. Looking at Kirei Kotomine's empty eyes, they both knew that.

“ _The crest worm is only an observation device.  
It is only activated as punishment for the host, Sakura_ _Matou , when she breaks a 'certain condition'."_

He had to be doing that to torture her, Rin was almost certain. Shirou Emiya looked outraged, yes, but in his coldness, she knew he knew too.

Sakura Matou's life had been a tragedy, but she had to die.

_"Sakura Matou fell, and Rin tried to save her. But Rider prevented her from doing so.  
Then the condition is obvious. To abandon the battles as a Master. That must be the restriction of the crest worm." _

Thus, if Sakura Matou dared to abandon the Holy Grail War, that parasitic Crest Worm would activate, and start eating her from the inside.

“ _I see. So she can fight and survive, or refuse to fight and be killed by the crest worm. Those are the only options Sakura has, right?”_

 

She wanted to hear a third option. She wanted a miracle.

But then, luck had never been a high level in Rin Tohsaka's life.

“ _Right. The crest worm will torment its host for as long as the Holy Grail War continues. If her condition keeps up, her body will not last long, and her mind will be destroyed. She has a Magic Crest all over her body, after all. You should understand how absurd that is, Rin.”_

 

She did. She did, and she wasn't even sure why that fake priest insisted in saying it all aloud.

But then, maybe this all was a lesson to Shirou Emiya, Magus Killer wannabe, and not just a torture session for her.

Knowing Kirei, though, it could very well be both.

 

“ _Yeah. Even though it should be familiar with my body, I still periodically get the urge to cut off my arm. I'm like this with one arm, so her function as a human being should be violated if she has it all over her body. She's no magus, but a cluster of Magic Circuit. The human mind should be overwritten by the wave of magical energy.”_

 

_**Sakura Matou can't be saved.** _

* * *

 Rin Tohsaka stared at the corpse, unable to move. The deed was done, but a part of her refused to acknowledge it.

Part of her would forever refuse to acknowledge it. Part of her had died with that purple haired girl. With Sakura Matou. With _her little sister_.

“ _Aren't you going to stop me, Emiya-kun?”_

Only silence had been her answer.

“ _So you won't mind even if I kill Sakura?”_

“ _I have nothing to say.”_ replied the steel hearted boy _“But... If I can take your place, I will.”_

Her soul had been crushed, her heart encased in ice.

Her last hope, her last hope, _her last hope had been him_ . She had wanted to hear the _“ **Stop** _!”.

Rin Tohsaka had known she was on the verge of crying, but she shed no tears. Steeling herself, she left the icy sensation of her heart numb her completely, and stood still for a few seconds.

_A magus walks with death._

_A magus must be perfect and coldhearted ._

_( **I** **nhuman** ) _

_A magus never lets emotions get in the way of what must be done._

 

_“No. This is my role. I can't give it to you.”_

And she opened the door.

* * *

 She was surely losing her mind.

There, staring at her sister's corpse, Rin Tohsaka had finally acknowledged the yellow mist that had started to surround her.

It was so thick that she could barely breath, and she heard a laugh somewhere behind her.

 

_“You're a magus indeed, Rin Tohsaka!”_

 

It was mocking her, that much she knew.

But that didn't matter. Everything, everything but the corpse on the table, and the yellow mist, was meaningless.

She tilted her head, slightly, as if asking a question.

The mist formed a net, all around her still body, and from the hole in the universe she would later know as the Convergence's effect, a red whip surrounded her neck.

 

The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was a smirking blonde man, whose red gaze was pinned on her, hovering over her sister's corpse, like forensic pathologist, ready for his next autopsy.

_She wanted to scream._


	3. The Tesseract (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to my beta, Quicksilver1881. Your help makes me want to keep writing this. Also, people, years in Alfheim are waaay longer than in other realms (time in Alfheim is weird, period), with the exception of Svartalfheim and Hel. And Sookie (Eveline) will age pretty much like Asgardians do...

“ _It's time”_

 

She had known, she had known this since her very first meeting with the Prince, and yet, those words hurt more than anything she had ever felt.

But, as a fae princess, she couldn't be seen as weak, even for a second, even with her very own fairy godmother, who would rather die than allow any harm come to her.

Thus, Sookie -no, not Sookie, that name had been erased, forgotten, a bad memory of past days, she was _Eveline_ , as her father had always wanted, because she had been the one the fae had _awaited_ -, Eveline took a calming breath and let her fears go.

 

“ _Princess? Is everything alright?”_

 

She smiled, looking at Claudine from her mirror, blue against emerald green, and her fairy godmother took that as a “go on”, putting her crown carefully on her golden locks, and using them to lock it in place, by means of a complicated plait, at the base of said crown.

Eveline couldn't help but feel like a doll, but she knew that this was necessary.

_Today was the day..._

Her father, Niall Brigant, had taken her in after her unfortunate early joining with the Space gem, barely managing to keep her alive for all these years, as his enemies seemed to be everywhere.

She shouldn't have been living in Alfheim.

Even if the “spark” was strong in her, even if she was one of the only three vessels born in the multiverse for the Infinity Gems, she shouldn't have been living in Alfheim, because a part of her -no one was sure how much, after the influence of having passed fourteen years in the fae realm, which was the same as forty-nine years in Midgard- was still human, _midgardian_.

And wasn't that the reason the war had started? Because of the existence of beings like her, whose blood wasn't _pure_?

* * *

 Breandan of the House of Ronan, the only heir of the Winter Princess, Maeve of the House Ronan, had started a war with his paternal uncle, Niall of the House of Brigant, after her existence had been discovered.

For centuries, the fae birth rate had been in decline, and the Ronan had claimed it was caused by the connection to Midgard, whose world had dreadful amounts of iron. Most of the portals had been sealed, and the “half-breeds” had been _exiled_ to Midgard, which was in most cases an euphemism for “killed”.

The House of Brigant had been severely hit by this measure, as its only heirs, Fintan and Dermott, were both half midgardians, sons of Prince Niall and a noble Irish woman of Midgard.

They both were exiled, and the Summer Prince was left without heirs.

But Niall didn't relent. He left his sons in an alternative Midgard, trying to keep them from the blood lustful Ronan, sure that his bloodline would stay powerful even in a world surrounded by iron, precisely due to their mixed blood.

Niall then took a wife from the Light Elves, knowing full well that she was infertile, even if it had been the most well guarded secret in her lineage, as his consort and he planned.

A prophecy had been given to him a long time ago, by Those Who Sit Above in Shadow, about a vessel for the Infinity Gems of Space and Mind, which would be born to his bloodline and a midgardian woman who had given birth to a fae hybrid, who would bring a new beginning for the Fae and their allies, the Light Elves.

So, even if the laws forbid midgardian-fairy hybrids, and any connection to Midgard, he kept a portal, only one, the same from which his sons had left Alfheim, open.

And barely two moons later, merely 343 years for the next Convergence,he had gone to Midgard, conceiving a baby with a midgardian woman, who was at the time married to his grandson, Corbett Stackhouse, called Michelle. He thought that if she could love a fairy hybrid like his grandson, who was 1/4, Michelle would love her daughter even more, as she would be more fae than Corbett. He was, of course, wrong.

But it wasn't his fault, exactly.

Years before, Desmond Cataliades, a half demon, had been saved by Fintan Brigant, swearing then that he would give a special gift to his new friend's bloodline.

After years and years of looking at said bloodline, and noticing that only Fintan's granddaughter had the “spark”, he gave her the gift of telepathy.

He did so without malice, because he thought it would help her understand those around her, from her first heartbeat.

It didn't go as planned, and the girl previously known as Sookie Stackhouse was treated like an outcast, bullied even in her own family, whilst being driven to her breaking point by the thoughts of the people around her, barely keeping herself sane by her own willpower.

Until she merged with the Space gem.

It had been thrown by Lochlan, one of Breandan's most faithful supporters, and his lover, when it was obvious he wouldn't be able to take the Gem to Maeve's palace. He had then teleported away, finally free of the gem's influence, which made him unable to do so before.

The Gem, powered by his desperate throw, and the closeness of its vessel, didn't have any trouble traversing through said vessel's flesh, until it stopped at its proper place, annexed to her heart.

* * *

 The guards that had been hunting Lochlan went through the portal, finding a little midgardian girl surrounded in a purple light.

Their devotion to their Prince persuaded them to take said girl to Niall's palace, and the Summer Prince was delighted, after his return from Vanaheim, to find his daughter waiting for him.

He renamed her, passing her as his consort's daughter. Vasilisa, the Summer Princess, took well her adopted daughter, as Niall had told her long ago of the prophecy related to his bloodline, and using her sorcery, exchanged her own blood with Eveline's, altering her appearance to look a bit like her. She had always wanted a child, and given the strictly political marriage between Niall and her, no ill feelings were raised after knowing Niall had conceived the child with another woman.

Even after said changes, Eveline looked like a female version of the Summer Prince, who doted on her all he could, given how little off time he had, as he was slowly getting rid of his enemies, and those who would murder his precious daughter if her true nature was discovered.

Vasilisa tried to compensate for Niall's absence, but even she couldn't quite fulfil his role.

Eveline was raised surrounded by luxury and the love and warmness that had been denied to her with her biological mother, with the memories of her previous life always generating a shadow over her life in Alfheim, as the knowledge that if her true nature was discovered, she would be hunted like a rabid dog.

_She wasn't meant to know about that._

Her father, Niall, hadn't been aware of her telepathy. Thus, he hadn't shielded his mind around her, until Vasilisa had revealed that information to him.

By then, Eveline already knew about the war, and why he had risked so much to conceive her.

This had been good in some aspects.

She understood, for example, why Niall had forbade her from leaving the palace, or speaking to anyone who hadn't been deemed “safe” by Niall himself, aloud or by a mental message.

She understood, too, why her education was so crucial -Niall was planning to overthrow the other three rulers of Alfheim, and so his heir had to be suitable-, comparable only to the one received by the two princes of Asgard.

Yet, she couldn't help but feel trapped.

She was in her father's realm, and yet she had only seen his palace. Everything beyond its golden doors was a mystery to solve, and every year was harder to keep her promise and stay in the Summer palace.

Vasilisa, the she-elf she had been calling _mother_ since her seventh birthday, had tried to help her cope with her beautiful golden cage, creating for her a magnificent garden, with the most beautiful greenery from all the Nine Realms, not realizing that this only made her more eager to see _more_.

* * *

 She knew it was bad, she knew it would hurt her mother and probably infuriate her father, but Claudette had taken _Sasha_ , her pet snake, and was using her to taunt Eveline, two meters from the Golden Gates.

 

“ _Aren't you going to rescue your dearest snake, cousin? Or should I smack its head with a stone?”_

“ _Leave Sasha alone! What in Hel is wrong with you?”_

 

But Eveline knew. Only Mother and Father knew about her telepathy, and through the years, she had managed to improve her “gift” (it was hard to not to see it as a curse, even after living nine years in Alfheim) until the victims couldn't notice her in their minds unless having a warning (and even then, it was hard, as she had been able to prove to her mother, after seven long years), thanks to her learnt finesse. Thus, the triplets were an open book to her mind.

Claudine liked her, as she was her primary step to becoming an angel (by means of being her fairy godmother), but her siblings barely tolerated her. It was, partly, by Niall's obvious favouritism towards her, and partly because they didn't quite like her nature.

Eveline wasn't as strong as an elf, or as fast as a fairy, and even if she wasn't a midgardian-fairy hybrid, she _was_ a hybrid. It didn't matter how much she tried, she would never fully fit in.

And knowing Niall's strict laws, they liked to try and make her break them.

Normally their “pranks” would be petty or annoying at most, but it seemed like today they wanted to outdo themselves.

It could be related to Odin's impending visit, or the fact that he would bring his sons with him.

_Claudette was going to kill Sasha!_

_Sasha_ had been one of her first gifts, brought for her by Niall himself from Midgard. She had just left mother's chambers, her whole body hurting from the blood adoption ritual, and Niall had been just there, with a warm embrace and a beautiful black mamba who spoke to her mind in dainty whispers, in a language she had never heard before.

Niall had smiled for her, and that smile warmed her very heart. She knew without having to ask that he had done something to the snake, so it wouldn't hurt her, or her loved ones. To make her life longer, so she never would be hurt by her lost...

_And Claudette was going to kill her._

Eveline did then something she hadn't dared to do before, rationalizing that two meters weren't really going that far, and took _Sasha_ from a smirking Claudette. Eveline punched her in the face, with all the strength she could muster, throwing her _dearest cousin_ against an oak.

And when she turned, ready to run back to the palace, Niall was standing right behind the Golden Gates, with the most stern face she had ever seen on him.

Claude was right next to him, the barely hidden smirk on his face telling her who had warned her father.

_It was like being back at Bon Temps._

* * *

  _It was somewhat worse than her biological mother's punishments._

Niall hadn't spoken a word to his daughter during the whole way to her chambers.

He was still wearing that stern face that made Eveline want to cry, and she felt as if the world around her was slowly eating her up.

_Did he hate her?_

_Was he going to send her back to her biological mother?_

Her heart felt as if someone was crushing it, and when they finally entered her chambers, she couldn't keep herself from sobbing. Her father's shoulders tensed, his hand grasping the blue doors of Eveline's room so hard that she thought he would leave the mark of his fingers on them.

“ _Do you hate me?”_

She had meant to say it neutrally, but her voice broke from the very start, and it ended sounding like a resigned statement, as if hating her was a foregone conclusion, and he had just reached it.

He turned, then, so fast her vision swooned a bit, and suddenly she was being held so strongly it hurt. Yet, she didn't complain, because he was _holding her_ , shaking like a leaf in the wind, his fingers intertwined with her golden locks, as if he had been about to lose her.

“ _Nothing in this world or the next could ever make me hate you, Eveline. But what you did today... There was a danger in this very walls, which should have kept you safe from everything, and I couldn't foresee it. It won't happen again. This I swear, you'll be protected, if it's the last thing I ever do.”_

She finally let the tears fall, sinking in her father's embrace, his warmness casting away the shadows of Michelle Stackhouse's scowl, and her inner voice wishing she hadn't birthed such a _freak_.

Niall Brigant didn't think that his daughter was a _freak_ , or _crazy_. She was his miracle, his most precious treasure, and that wouldn't change, no matter what...

* * *

 Once father had to leave, to receive Odin and his sons, mother took her to their garden, and sitting on the fresh grass, Vasilisa combed Eveline's hair in a thick braid around her head like a halo, decorating it with sapphire gems, thus matching her dark blue dress.

She was shoeless, her feet daintily on the ground while her nails, also sporting a dark blue colour, dried. It was awesome, for Eveline, to just chill out with her mother, surrounded by the exotic smell of their garden, the moon already up in the sky, bathing them in its silver rays.

Once her nails were dry, and Vasilisa put the last sapphire in her halo-like braid, Claudine called them both from the garden borders, via a mental message to Eveline.

 

“ _Father is calling us, says Claudine”_

“ _Let's not keep him waiting, then...”_

 

Hand in hand, they cleansed their feet on a nearby fountain, and put on their shoes, making their way to the main hall with the proper composure of the royal family. Right at the doors, mother and daughter separated, one going right through the doors, while the other back to her chambers.

Eveline knew that father wouldn't want her in the presence of strangers, or more clearly, he wouldn't want her near Odin. So she made her way to her chambers, her fingers tracing the walls, still in the calm daze mother put her in every time she combed her hair, until she noticed that she wasn't alone.

Her mind, always reading intermittently around her, _just in case_ , detecting an unfamiliar mind mere meters behind her.

It was a boy, his mind so _cold_ it made her shiver, and he had been _watching_ her for _minutes_ without her even being aware of his presence.

Eveline turned around, just enough to catch his face, she told herself, and had to stop dead right there, because _gods he was the most handsome boy she had ever seen..._

His hair was dark like a crow's feathers, creating a stark contrast with his pale skin. Even from her position, she could see that he had a strong built, more like a swimmer than a weight lifter, and his green and golden clothes were nicely complimented by his golden helmet and his coat, also green and golden.

But the part that really made her stop dead, the part that had seemingly fixed her to the ground... _Oh, his eyes..._

They were a swirling battle of the most unnaturally hypnotic green and sapphire blue, staring right through hers, and she felt as if her very own soul was bare to those eyes. Eveline could have spent her whole life staring into those eyes, that looked closer and closer, until there was merely a few centimetres between them.

She felt his hands on her waist, turning her until they were standing right in front of each other, noses almost touching, even if he was taller than her by at least 20 centimetres.

 

_**“** **Would you be mine?”**_


	4. The Tesseract (Part 2)

  _ **“** **Would you be mine?”**_

 

His hand rose to caress her cheek, and as she looked into his eyes, slightly biting her bottom lip, they both knew the answer.

_When their lips met, it was as if their souls had merged that night..._

 

Claudine's voice broke the daze they had been under, calling for her goddaughter, and Eveline suddenly set herself free of his embrace, running away into the palace, leaving behind the stunned prince who could still feel her taste on his lips.

 

She could taste him, too, once she was safely locked away in her chambers, her back against the polychromed mahogany, her breath still erratic, her whole face blushed as she caressed her lips with the tip of her tongue, biting her lips, so utterly confused she couldn't even explain her actions.

_Kissing a stranger in the middle of the corridors? What in Hel could have moved her to do so?_

“ _Even if he was honestly the hottest guy in the mult... Damn it!”_

_She had just given her first kiss ever to a total stranger, and she couldn't think of anything other than going back to him._

* * *

 Her mysterious hot stranger was actually Loki Odinson, who for some reason she couldn't even start to fathom, hadn't been in the main hall with his father and brother.

They all had left that morning -she had been able to see them in the courtyard from one of the main windows, and she could have sworn that he had looked at her right before the Bifrost took them back to Asgard (if it hadn't been impossible).

She was left in a daze all morning, still lost in the dreams that had plagued her that night -Eveline had thought she would have nightmares, but all she had been able to think about was her mysterious stranger. The one to whom she had given her soul, even if she hadn't said it aloud.

_**“** **Would you be mine?”** _

His question hunted her, echoing in her mind like an infinite loop, his voice making her shiver even in memory, the feel of his hands on her waist... No one had ever held her like that.

_And no one ever will do so again, for I'm his, I'm his, I'm his. And he's mine..._

 

Much later she would hear of the task that had brought Odin to Alfheim.

Apparently, her father had asked for a special cube, made from the finest Asgardian iron, and Odin had come, wondering why he would need a cube _so especial_. A cube able to hold an Infinity Gem, if needed.

Niall had managed to trick him, hiding his true purposes, and the cube was given to his best blacksmiths, from within the Light Elves, as they weren't hurt by iron.

 

“ _It isn't a cage”_ he had told them _“It's a save heaven, for my most precious treasure”_

 

She had been sentenced, even if she didn't know it yet. For Niall knew the very second his dearest daughter stepped but a foot outside of the Golden Doors, his enemies would start to reach the correct conclusions.

_A war was about to start... again._

Merely three years later, the war was escalating quickly, the dead's dust already forming little mountains.

_All, because of her._

Niall had told her, seventeen days after Odin's visit, why he had been avoiding her.

Apparently, two of the triplets had inadvertently helped Breandan's ever vigilant forces.

Lochlan had been spying the palace, trying to find a weak point to try and find out what was so special in Niall's daughter, as to keep her locked away in the summer palace for fifteen years.

It would have been understandable the first ten, but _fifteen_? The girl had to be a proper young woman already!

So, to his surprise, when the Summer Princess left behind the Golden Gates of the palace... He could _feel_ a very _familiar_ thing... As she shone with the Space Gem's aura, Gem he had thrown into the portal to Midgard...

A long investigation had then been issued, to determinate the girl's true origins.

Breandan's most trusted servants -and lovers-, Lochlan and his sister, Neave, had used a confiscated portal to Midgard, and found after two long years, the once heirs to the Brigant lineage, Fintan and Dermott, in a little town in Louisiana, called “Bon Temps”.

The first had mixed with a midgardian woman, Adele Stackhouse, and she had given birth to two siblings, Corbett and Linda Stackhouse.

They had had their own children, but it got interesting with Corbett's family, because he had had _two_ children: Jason and Sookie Stackhouse. And the girl had disappeared when she was barely six years old, not to be heard from again.

From old photos, lost in the old Stackhouse residence's attic, Lochlan recognised the girl as the so called _Eveline Brigant_.

After killing the ones of mixed breed -including Fintan and Dermott-, they went back to Alfheim with news for their master.

_And the war started again._

* * *

 She was 20 years old.

Well, at least, she _looked_ 20 years old.

“ _It's time, Eveline”_

Her dress was simple, yet beautiful.

It was sleeveless, with a V-neck, yet long enough to cover her completely from the waist down, leaving a slight trail behind her.

The dress was decorated with pale gold, matching her crown whilst making the sapphires it was decorated with stand out more, and it complimented her figure, and her creamy skin perfectly, as suitable for a Princess on a day like this.

_Could one ever prepare to be locked up in a magic cube?_

 

_The Tesseract..._

It was bigger in the inside, and the light elves had made it suitable for a queen.

This of course, couldn't matter less. She would be unconscious during every single second she spent in the locked cube.

It would limit the Space Gem's influence when Eveline wasn't conscious to do so, and she would remain safe in Odin's vault.

The very second the civil war between the fae was over, Niall would issue a one word command, that she would hear from wherever she was in the multiverse, and the Tesseract would break, leaving her free to come back at will, with the Space Gem finally unlocked inside of her.

And _then_ , she would be able to find _him_. Her first kiss, her asgardian prince. Loki.

* * *

  _She should be unconscious._

Eveline wanted to say something, but the cube had already frozen her in place, locked up in satin straps, in her blue bed, inside of the cube.

Niall himself was putting her in the cube, and had shielded his mind to avoid distracting her, so he wouldn't be able to hear her.

“ _It's cold”_ she wanted to say _“Why am I still awake?”_

_Why?_

_Why?_

_Why?_

Niall closed her eyes, and she wanted to scream, but was left unable to move.

* * *

 The Tesseract was given to Odin by the Summer Prince himself, in exchange for a non action pact, by which Asgard would stay away from the civil war in Alfheim, unless another external agent involved themselves with it, in which case, Asgard would fight by the Summer Prince's side.

The war went on, and on, until the Summer Prince had annihilated his enemies, taking over the other three factions of Alfheim, _Spring_ , _Autumn_ and _Winter_.

He crowned himself king of Alfheim, and the Fae and the Light Elves shut themselves from the other realms, the devastating effects of the war leaving them on the very edge of extinction.

Prince Niall of the House of Brigant didn't say the word that would free his beloved daughter, believing she would be better off hidden in Asgard, until the Fae realm had recovered.

He couldn't have known that Odin had left behind in Midgard, maybe forgotten, maybe on purpose, the Tesseract which contained the supposedly asleep fairy princess.

* * *

 Eveline couldn't really do anything, locked away as she was, but she _just knew_ that she wasn't in Odin's vault anymore.

When the first human used the Tesseract to their own purposes, Eveline felt a sharp pain go through her body.

As her soul reached through the multiverse for a fraction of a second, she became aware that what was supposed to be her _safe heaven_ was her new cage.

A cage that could be used to manipulate her powers, without anyone being aware of the terrible pain it caused her.

At least, in exchange, when the Tesseract was used she could reach through the multiverse, brief flashes showing her just enough to barely know what was going on around her.

_It surely wasn't the Midgard she was born into..._

* * *

  _When Johann Schmidt found her, she relearned the meaning of **pain**_.

* * *

 She kept herself sane.

Even when the pain was so excruciating she wanted to die, she _kept herself sane_.

Because every time, every single time someone used her prison, one of her chains would break.

When Howard Stark got her, she was able to move her legs, knees down.

She liked him. He preferred to pass the hours merely _looking_ at her prison, instead of _using_ it, trying to unravel a puzzle not made for humans.

It wasn't like he could have seen her, she was in a little cage inside the Tesseract, which had different capes. She could still remember her father's voice:

“ _It's just in case, my dear...”_

She missed him. When Schmidt had been using her, it had been for periods so long that the pain had made her shut herself up, in order to keep her sanity somewhat intact. Thus, she didn't know what had happened to him, as her reach couldn't break the barriers that surrounded Alfheim. Her whole body seemed on fire if she ever tried to, and it was just far _too painful_.

Without any way to react to her surroundings, other than by blinding the pain that made her release the Space Gem's power, Eveline could only remember her whole life, in an eternal loop, again, and again, _and again..._ Trying to analyse every single second, as there was nothing else she could do.

The Space Gem wouldn't let her die, not until its next vessel was born, and that wouldn't happen for at least another five billion years...

* * *

 She was left alone for a long time, lost in memories, and a first kiss, so long ago... A young man with hypnotic eyes, and those words, _those words..._

 

“ _ **Would you be mine?”**_

 

She wished she could go back in time. She wished she had had the courage to say it out loud, the loud _**“Yes”**_ that had been echoing in every heartbeat. She wished he had taken her with him, _away, away, away..._

_And then, the pain returned._

But this time, it was different. Because every single time her prison was used, she could _feel it_.

The same coldness in her mind, the shivers... _It was **him**_.

* * *

 He was hurting.

His soul was in shreds, and she wanted to kick her way out of her damned cage, to lock him in her embrace. To kiss him again, if only to try to soothe his pain by reminding him of their romantic moment, back in Alfheim, so long ago...

_Would he ever remember it?_

She didn't want to know the answer to that question. She couldn't even contemplate it, because _he was there_ , and he had been _her anchor_ , and _gods she had wished for him for so long..._

_He would remember her. The very second their eyes locked, he would remember her._

_She **was sure.** He **had to.**_

* * *

 She didn't want to help the Chitauri.

They had _tortured_ her prince, they had _hurt_ him, and for that they would _pay_.

Almost fully free, only the chains around her torso remaining, she imposed her will on the Space Gem's power for the first time, allowing Tony Stark enough time to leave the missile with the Chitauri and return to Midgard.

The strength needed to do so knocked her out.

When Thor used her to bring himself and Loki back to Asgard, she wanted to protest.

_How could he chain her prince?_

But she was exhausted, and not even the pain of transporting them back to Asgard could keep her attention.

Certainly, her pain tolerance had been raised far above such a tiny matter.

* * *

 She was exchanged, _again_ , this time to Heimdall, who used her to _repair a goddamned bridge._

_But Loki was close._

_So she was somewhat happy._

And _ohhh,_ she learnt so many things, in Asgard...


	5. Connections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was harder to write than all the others, because... The plot got more complicated than I thought, and I've had to review most of the films... The MCU is kind of huge now, so it's complicated, because I still haven't finished watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., nor have I watched Daredevil, so I depend mostly on the MCU's wikia page and my dearest beta, Quicksilver1881, who somehow stands my brainstorms at 2 or 3 am... (I'll be forever in your debt)  
> Without more preamble, here you have it!

She was locked up, barely able to move, and yet, she was somewhat happy.

Even through the pain, even though the buried wish that made her want to kill every single being who had ever used _the cube_ , her _prison_ that got stronger every time someone used the Tesseract, she was _happy_.

_He's here._

_He's here._

_He's here..._

Her beloved prince was finally within her reach, _so close_...

And she was so close to being free again, she could barely wait. The closest she had ever been to freedom was during her time with Schmidt, and then she wasn't used to the pain of the Tesseract being active, so even if for a few moments she had in fact been _free_ of the icy bonds that bound her to her cage, her body had been too hurt to move.

But now... Even if that man, _Heimdall_ , had hurt her (unknowingly , of course, for he couldn't see her in the cube), by using her power to restore the Bifrost, it had also melted her bounds, and this time she was _prepared_. So when her body was finally free, she herself used her power, this time from the inside.

The walls that had held her for so long started to break, tiny fissures appeared and broadened as her will pulled them apart.

Her bounds were trying to regenerate faster, to hold her in place, but she fought them. The Convergence gave her strength, her being everywhere and nowhere at the same time, the Space Gem's power reaching through the multiverse. _S_ _he wouldn't be bound any longer_.

_Never again, never again, never again..._

She could _feel_ his soul, getting _close and closer._ She focused on him.

_Loki, Loki, Loki, Loki..._

The Tesseract imploded, and her body fell to the vault's floor, covered in a slim sheet of dust.

 _She was free at last_.

* * *

 Rogue woke up, her heartbeat trying to imitate a hummingbird's song, whilst she felt as if someone had been using her head as an anvil.

_Such a strange dream... Why would she ever dream about something like that?_

_And really? That Loki didn't sound like her type. So, why had she been mooning over him in her dream? What was all that supposed to mean?_

_Did it even have to mean something?_

When she was finally able to take in her surroundings, she was temporally confused.

_This doesn't look like my room at all..._

But then she remembered.

_Running away..._

_The woods..._

_**THE MAN WHOSE HAND WENT THROUGH MY CHEST...** _

 

Her hands were frantically looking for the weeping wound that should be open in her chest, disregarding that little whisper in her head that told her she should be burnt crisp, a whisper that sounded suspiciously like Cody Mason.

But there was nothing.

Her chest was perfectly fine, even if she couldn't recognise her shirt's texture. And a mere look at her skin revealed the unusual almost-albino tone that had frustrated her so much during her life, which would turn a bright red every time she had tried to tan.

_Physically, at least, I'm fine... But... Where am I, exactly?_

She knew _that man_ had taken her somewhere, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember where.

Her memory faded in a green light, and now she was in an unknown room with sea green walls.

_Oh, really? What the..._

Her thoughts were interrupted by an old lady -who looked fifty years old at least-, who stopped at the door after seeing her apparent guest awake, before giving Rogue a beatific smile, like the perfect American grandma, her white hair up in a stylish bun decorated with a golden bow that matched her clothes, which were in dull golds and whites suitable for a perfect southern lady.

 

“ _Oh dear, you're finally awake! I was really starting to worry...”_

 

Rogue blinked, startled.

_Finally awake? How long have I been out? And how did I end up here?_

 

“ _Oh, sorry, um... Excuse me, ma'am, how did I...?”_

 

“ _... End up here?”_

 

“ _Uh... Yes...”_

 

Rogue was slightly embarrassed, asking questions right off, when the lady had apparently been taking care of her, but the doubts were burning her from the inside out, and she just _had to know_ , so she appeased her southern manners by telling herself that she would show the proper niceties once the lady had told her _how on Earth had she ended here..._

 

“ _Well, dear, it was two days ago. My husband and I came home from the cinema, and we found you in our backyard. You were knocked out, as if you had been running from something, and there was some blood on your shirt... I used to be a doctor, so I treated you once my Herbert had brought you in. You had a first degree burn o n your chest, but otherwise seemed fine. I called a still active doctor, a friend of mine, and she confirmed that you only needed rest...”_

 

Rogue felt ungrateful, now, thinking about the scare she had probably given to the lady, and the work she had put her through.

 

“ _I must thank you then, Mrs...”_

 

“ _Evans, dearest. Catherine Evans.”_

 

“ _I'm... Anna, Anna Raven.”_

 

_She couldn't exactly say “Rogue”, after all. It would sound weird and Mrs Evans could take offence. .._

* * *

 The Evans were good people.

They cared for her, because apparently, even if her burn wounds had healed after the first day (and she was grateful that they hadn't asked _how_ she could heal that quickly), her body was exhausted, and she had to sleep constantly.

They told her she was in New Hampshire, and that everything was a little raw, after a battle on Theodore Roosevelt Island, which she didn't really understand, because, _wouldn't she have heard of it?_

But there were some strange differences, too, because apparently mutants weren't known there, and since the Evans were pretty rustic and didn't have much tech in their house, she couldn't know if it was only them or the world in general.

* * *

  _Everything changed when she tried to leave._

Only two weeks passed, and the Evans' quirks were more and more obvious. Rogue, though, didn't really want to offend them, after the burden she had imposed on them with her weakness, and so she limited herself to wait until her body was strong enough, before even trying to say goodbye.

They never gave any indication of wanting her out of their house, but she thought they had to be getting tired of her already.

_She really should have been paying more attention._

_The signs were all over the place..._

When she casually mentioned wanting to go to the nearest city, to try and contact her relatives ( _lies, lies, she would start to hitchhike_ ), Herbert, who had been serving pancakes for their breakfast -Catherine was doing the laundry-, tensed. Rogue looked at him, slightly confused, and when she was about to start washing the dishes, she almost _felt_ him pouncing on her.

She was barely able to turn in time, the momentum slamming her against the countertop, but the pain wasn't really noticed, because _Herbert was trying to knock her out!_

The moment his skin touched hers, she felt his life being drained inside, and his memories, his very being, was _open_ to her.

_Herbert Evans wasn't Herbert Evans. Nor was Catherine._

_They were secret agents, veterans of an organisation called HYDRA._

_An organisation that was planning to experiment on her, because apparently she emitted weird gamma radiations._

 

But then her thoughts were disrupted, because the woman who had called herself _Catherine Evans_ had used a baseball bat to knock her out.

_She would wonder, later, how that hit hadn't killed her._

* * *

 The next time she opened her eyes, a man who called himself Wolfgang von Strucker was watching her, as if she was some kind of new treasure that had been left on his doorstep.

 

“ _A new miracle has fallen into my hands... Oh, dear, is everything okay?”_

 

She wanted to scream, to claw his eyes out with her nails, to run and get away from wherever they had brought her...

_Sokovia._

_Sokovia._

_You are in Sokovia..._

Herbert -no, _Bernhard Eichel_ \- was hammering her conscience, Cody hiding in a room that hadn't been there before, and his memories were still polluting her mind, _everywhere, everywhere,_ _**everywhere!** _

She remembered Baron von Strucker. Or, well, the Bernhard Eichel in her head remembered the Baron, even if she herself hadn't seen him before in her life.

_It didn't matter._

_By the time she had managed to lock him up in another room in her head, the baron's face would forever be engraved in her mind. His and Doctor List's._

* * *

 As time went on, her weird dreams about a blonde girl and a blue eyed brunette were her only breather.

She could stop being herself in those dreams, stop being _caged_ in that awful white room, stop being Doctor List's favourite lab rat...

 _It didn't mean their lives were better than hers_.

* * *

 More often than not, Rin Tohsaka spent her time trying to ignore the _emptiness_ in her life, the maddening struggle between her _idol_ persona and the magus her father had wanted her to be, between those two “masks” and the feelings she shouldn't have.

She didn't have a sister, after all.

Her little sister died eleven years ago, and yet, during her life, she couldn't stop looking at her from afar, her hair turned into a dark purple for some unfathomable reason, and then...

A man. A red haired man, who Sakura Matou had very strong feelings for, was lying on the ground, his heart pierced by a blood red lance.

 _She had been careless_.

_No one should have been able to watch the Servants fight..._

She had repaired his heart, using her most valuable weapon, the powerful pendant her father had left her.

_She **shouldn't have done** **that** . _

_The pendant was supposed to help her win the War, and yet..._

_How could she have looked at Sakura's eyes, knowing she could have saved her beloved, and not doing so?_

* * *

 Sookie Stackhouse -no, _no, **Eveline Brigant** _ , as her father had named her- was almost worse.

But feeling the stones thrown at her by her classmates was better than feeling how Doctor List cut another piece of her skin, better than feeling how the wound melded itself under the doctor's awed eyes, before he tested her resilience more extensively.

 

So she lost herself in Eveline's life (her life in Eveline's Midgard, because the memories after the purple light were blurrier and gave her headaches).

She was locked up, many, many times.

* * *

  _She was locked up in a cupboard, alone in the dark, as her mother's words resonated through her soul._

 

“ _Monster! Monster! I gave birth to a monster! How **could** you? Dirty liar! Nasty girl! Making stories up, trying to taint a good man's standing!”_

 

She hadn't meant to do it.

But the teacher had been so loud that day, and... Oh, how could she have known that telling Mrs Roberts about Mr Wright's thoughts could end up like that? How could she have known that he could be fired? She had been sent to the principal's office, and Mrs Roberts had asked why she had screamed in class... She had thought that she had to tell her the truth. Her father had told her that she should always say the truth, because telling lies was a sin, and...

_Oh, how could he have known?_

_Mr Wright had been the loudest, and her head hurt, so she hadn't been able to think a proper excuse._

Even if lying was a sin, she knew, she knew, _she knew already_ that people usually preferred sweet lies to hard truths.

She _knew_ people got nervous when she repeated whatever their _inner voices_ had said, the many visits to many different doctors, the tests, and the stubborn unwillingness they had to admitting that she could, in fact, _hear whatever they were thinking_ had taught her that much.

But she had been so tired...

Everyone had been louder than usual...

_It didn't matter. She would stay in the cupboard until her father came back home._

_And he would release her, ask for forgiveness for her mother's actions, while he wished she had been born dead._

* * *

 Rogue woke up, startled, by an alarm signal.

Someone was attacking the main research compound.

She wasn't exactly there, of course, Baron von Strucker had deemed her too unstable to mingle with the other two “miracles” (whoever they were, she had never heard any names, just aliases like “the Twins”). But something was supposed to be brought from there, to the underground base where she was being experimented on, some metres under the room with Chitauri weaponry, an independent facility isolated enough from the main building as to remain undetected, the only way in being by a long tunnel with its door somewhere in the surrounding forest.

 

Everything they had obtained from their experiments on her -her _gamma radiation_ was apparently similar to that of the Tesseract and whatever they were hiding up in the main base-, was to be hidden, the whole underground base put in suspension, at least until it was safe to resume said experiments.

She was put in what, to her, looked an awful lot like an iron coffin.

_And she was forced to blackout again._

* * *

 The next time she woke up, she was next to a blonde haired man, their hands locked in a strong grip.

She was confused, and the room was awfully cold.

His skin was too pale, and his hand on hers was too cold. She wasn't a doctor, nor did she have a doctor's skills, but she _just knew he was dead_.

_She was in a very cold room, in a very big iron bed, with the pale corpse of a blonde man next to her._

She screamed until her throat felt raw.

The shock, or maybe just the coldness surrounding her, knocked her out.

* * *

  _ **Wake up.**_

_**Wake up.** _

_**Wake up.** _

_**Please, please, I'm alone, it's cold,** **wake up** . _

* * *

 She was alone in a grassland.

The sky was green, that same sickly green colour she had seen in what seemed like ages ago, when that strange man had put his hand through her chest, like a red-hot knife passing through butter, and she hated to admit that she was _scared_.

 

“ _Who are you?”_

 

Well, apparently, she wasn't as alone as she thought.

She turned around, still on her knees, and she saw _him_.

_A pale corpse next to her._

_Blonde hair, dark roots._

She paled.

He was looking at her, his head slightly turned, like asking a silent question.

She couldn't bring herself to talk.

And he took a step towards her.

Rogue stood up so fast her legs wobbled, her breath speeding, and she felt as if she was about to have a heart attack.

_He's dead._

_He's dead._

_He's **the corpse at your side...** _

He didn't look dead now.

His eyes shone with concern when her legs refused to hold her upright, and he was by her side so quickly that he was able to hold her before her body could even approach the ground.

 

“ _Y-You... Y-You...”_

 

Her voice was but a whisper, her throat raw from her panicked screams, but he was so close to her that her voice wasn't lost to the wind.

 

“ _You called me. I was... I was... Sleeping? But you called me. Who are you?”_

 

“ _I-I? I called you? But... But... No, no, no... I haven't... You're...!”_

 

Her voice failed her again, her throat hurting like never before.

Merely breathing was becoming an issue. And she was _so cold..._

He was concerned, his hands -hands that were cold, yes, but not corpse-cold anymore- holding her, checking her forehead, then he frowned.

 

“ _You're freezing , Miss .”_

* * *

  _ **Wake up.**_

_**Wake up.** _

_**Wake up.** _

_**Please, please, somebody... Somebody, get me out of this** **place...** _

* * *

 Someone was holding her close, an arm under her knees whilst the other supported her shoulders, her head resting on a strong chest.

That unknown person's heartbeat was keeping her grounded, away from the _coldness_ , the _dark nothing_ the cold room had brought.

 

“ _Please, Miss , wake up...”_

 

That voice... That voice... She had heard it before, in...

_Where?_

_When?_

Everything was fuzzy.

She was cold, but she could feel a thick blanket around her body.

_She had been lying naked in a cold room, a corpse by her side..._

 

“ _Please, wake up...”_

 

His voice was gorgeous, thought Rogue.

_Gorgeous, and strong, and, oh, is he holding me bride-like?_

Her eyes opened, finally, and she smiled when she saw his face, not corpse-like at all now, and allowed herself to be held in his protective embrace.

 

“ _Thank you... My knight in shining armour...”_

 

_She had called him._

_**Wake up.** _

_**Wake up.** _

_**Wake up.** _

_She had called him, because she was scared._

_And the power in her had brought him back, at a price, of course._

 

The corpses of the scientists and the guards in the underground base were masterfully avoided by her knight, the one she had brought back, her warm hand in his, until his soul was merged with his body again.

The one she had brought back, the one she had healed, fuelled by the lives of those who had hurt her so much.

* * *

  _Somewhere near Brighton, Rin Tohsaka woke up from her suspended animation, her gem's power propelling her onto Brighton's sea shore from the land under the English Channel._

 


	6. Interludes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to my dearest beta, Quicksilver1881, who still manages to make my babbling somewhat coherent. Oh, and when you see bold italics in Rin's POV, it's a flashback. That said, let's get to the chapter.

Pietro knew that _something_ was missing.

Ever since he had heard her call from the very first time, to the moment he had opened his eyes to see her lying right by his side, her warm hand on his like a beacon of light that had brought him back from something he didn't really want to remember, he _knew_ something was missing.

 

He remembered the darkness, the complete isolation, and _then_ , her voice. She had been terrified, the loneliness and the utter desperation radiating from her in waves. Her voice had been progressively getting louder, her soul reaching out until he had been completely surrounded in a green haze. Pietro -for a part of her had recognised him, whispering his name as her power locked him in a strong grip- could have tried to resist, to free himself from her embrace, but he could feel that there was _something_ between them.

His soul recognised her, even if he hadn't seen her before -things had been fuzzy with his memory even then-, like hers recognised his.

 

Thus, he let her take him away, away from the dark coldness that had been slowly dissolving him, into a grassland he had never been in, feeling how the green haze passed right through him, healing him, tying him again into his body, while _her_ -the girl lying on her knees on the ground, shaking slightly, as if her body was losing its warmth.

 

“ _ **W**_ ** _ake up._ **

_**Wake up.** _

_**Wake up.** _

_**Please, please, I'm alone, it's cold,** **wake up** . **”** _

 

She repeated the same words over and over again, like a prayer, her fingers digging lines in the ground, her hair, which was long and sported a dark, rich colour framed her face, hiding her from him.

He was confused, not knowing what was wrong, what had reduced her to that state (she was trembling now, and even if he couldn't _see_ her, Pietro would swear she was crying). He found himself near her, in less than a blink, but she still seemed to ignore his presence.

“ _Who are you?”_

The question had left his lips before he could realize he had, in fact, said it. He just couldn't help it. She was calling him, over and over again, while something tried to take him back into the darkness, and the green haze tied him more strongly to her.

But maybe she really wasn't aware of what she had been doing to him, because when she finally looked at him, her face lost the colour it still had left -the colour the coldness hadn't been able to take away yet-, and she stood up without a second thought, even if her body trembled so hard that her legs gave up and her body would have met the ground if he hadn't caught her in time.

Her breath was ragged, and as he held her, Pietro could feel the warmness leaving her body, into his.

_She's... She's... What? What, exactly, is she doing right now?_

 

“ _Y-You... Y-You...”_

 

It was kind of cute, he thought, how her voice managed to affect him. If he was closer to her, the process, the battle she was currently fighting without apparently being aware of it, against the dark coldness, was easier to win. The green haze turned into a bright green bond that kept their right hands together, and the world around him became clearer and clearer with every passing second. His soul felt warmer, more energized.

 

“ _You called me. I was... I was... Sleeping? But you called me. Who are you?”_

 

He wouldn't lie to her. At least, he didn't think he had lied. His time in the darkness was confusing, and the closest way he could start to describe it was exactly that: sleeping.

He wanted to hear her voice again, even if she was still trembling -it got worse with every passing second.

 

“ _I-I? I called you? But... But... No, no, no... I haven't... You're...!”_

 

_What? I am... what? Do you even know how warm you make me feel? Why is it? Why have you called me?_

 

The questions were rising without any answer in sight. But it wasn't important, not now, when her face had taken an ashen tone, her lips turning blue as the warmth turned into a blazing heat that started to make him quite uncomfortable. He thought that maybe she had a fever, but when his hand touched her forehead, her skin was as cold as ice.

 

“ _You're freezing , Miss .”_

 

She closed her eyes, those emerald green eyes that confused him so much, and he felt himself being violently thrown back into his body.

His whole being trembled, a shiver spanning through his back, and when he opened his eyes again, she was _there_.

Her body seemed even smaller like that, under the white sheet that barely managed to cover her up, pale skin against a white background, her dark hair making a stark contrast, making her look deathly pale. Her lips were, in fact, taking in a pale blue tone, and he knew he had to get her out of the room, before the cold managed to hurt her.

 

Pietro realized then that he, too, was naked, but preferred to cover her. After all, their hands were still locked in a tight grip, and he could feel her power filling him up with that warmness that turned more uncomfortable as time passed. It was energy, he knew that, life energy from her into him, and he _had to take her out of that thrice damned room..._

The door was open, and he felt wary, because even if he couldn't remember anything previous to her calling -calling she was still muttering, by the way-, he felt that the place should have been guarded.

_Maybe whoever arranged this is hiding?_

But that question had its answer the moment he stepped into the main corridor.

All around him, in different positions and with different clothes, corpses were clearly visible. It looked as if they had tried to run away, but got caught before they could make it to the exit.

Scientists and guards had been mercilessly killed, and yet they sported no visible wounds, nor had their bodies any sign of resistance. It was as if they had fell asleep in a second, falling to the ground in whichever position they had been whilst awake. The sight creeped him out, and his resolve to get the woman in his arms away from that cursed place was reinforced.

Yet, he knew, they couldn't get out like that, him naked and her merely hidden by a thin sheet. Thus, he used the speed he somehow knew he had to get himself some clothes (there were many wardrobes in one of the only rooms without corpses, almost at the very end of the corridor). They were a simple ensemble of a generic white t-shirt and black pants, with nondescript trainers, but he wanted to take her out of the base as soon as possible, so he wasn't going to be picky.

Even then, he felt it would be quite awkward for her to have him dress her, so he merely got her another of the white t-shirts and a pair of jeans, leaving them against her torso (still covered in the sheet), and wrapped her in a thicker sheet.

It was hard to even do so, because apparently distancing himself from her -even for the few seconds it had taken him to get dressed and to wrap her with the sheet- was draining.

Thus, he took her in his arms again, and taking her hand in his, Pietro allowed himself a whole minute just like that, enjoying the feeling of her power, now pleasantly warm again, tying him to her.

_He had to wake her up._

_Everything was fuzzy, and remembering hurt, but he knew that she shouldn't sleep yet. Not really. Not until he had managed to get them both out of that place._

 

“ _Please, Miss , wake up...”_

 

She kept repeating her mantra, again and again. But she didn't open her eyes, so he couldn't know if she was really awake or sleep-talking.

 

“ _Please, wake up...”_

 

Her voice wavered, and she finally opened her eyes. He could feel his soul relaxing at least, knowing that she was awake, she was there, tying him to her. Keeping him strong, with the power he couldn't yet comprehend.

 

“ _Thank you... My knight in shining armour...”_

 

He smiled, and no more than five seconds later, they had found their way out, into a dark forest.

* * *

 “ _Miss? Miss, are you okay?”_

 

Rin grunted, not quite wanting to wake up yet.

The sea's pleasant sounds were prompting her to sleep, and her body was too sore to even think about moving.

_She knew that something terrible had happened._

_Maybe if she remained a sleep, it would just go away..._

But a hand was shaking her shoulders, pulling her away from her blissful sleep, and she felt her conscience returning, her soul taken away from the dreamlands, and in the haze that controlled her every time she had just woke up, it took her several minutes to regain a minimum of awareness regarding her surroundings.

_At least no one is shaking me now..._

 

“ _Uh...?”_

 

When she was finally awake enough to feel the sand under her head, her eyes focused on the person that had been shaking her.

 

_I need a distraction._

_Don't think._

_Don't think..._

 

Said person was a beautifully mocha skinned woman, whose tight bath-suit brought out with its dark golden colour. Her black hair fell in waves, framing her face, and Rin had to blink several times, because she had never seen eyes with such a warm shade of brown.

 

_**Purple eyes, purple eyes that were once blue, now won't see anything ever again...** _

 

Then she actually realized that she seemed to be on a beach somewhere, and the woman wasn't the only one who was looking at her with a strange mix between concern and curiosity. A whole circle of people surrounded her, everyone in different bathing suits, and Rin became aware that her own clothes -which somehow were dry, even if she had felt the sea around her before- made her stand out quite obviously.

 

When she tried to stand up (or even get on her knees), her body reminded her that apparently she had been hit very recently, and thus the magus couldn't keep the painful groan from leaving her lips.

 

_**“** **You're a magus indeed, Rin Tohsaka!”** _

 

Tears were gathering in her eyes, but she refused to let all these people see her vulnerable.

 

“ _Urgh...”_

 

Her voice was ragged, and her throat hurt, so when the woman in the dark golden bath-suit helped her turn around and brought a glass of water to her lips, Rin drank without a single protest. Even if all those eyes piercing holes into her were making her feel quite awkward, in her precarious situation.

_Do they know?_

_Can they see it on my face?_

_( **Murderer** ) _

Only her long experience hiding her true feelings allowed her to keep up theblank façade, when her mind stopped being able to keep away something she would have preferred to forget.

 

_I killed Sakura... I killed her and..._

 

Had it really been a yellow mist? Her hand raised to her neck when she remembered the red whip that had taken her from her dead _not-_ sister's side.

 

Her heartbeat speeded up then, her eyes frantically looking for the blonde man with red eyes, but she wasn't able to find him.

 

The back of her right hand was bleeding, the command spells sending a stabbing pain through her whole body, which didn't quite make things better, as she was already feeling pain pretty much everywhere.

(She barely noticed that she had the three again)

 

Her connection with Archer had been brutally severed, yet she still felt how her prana flowed into another being.

 

_**Red eyes staring at her, leaving holes in her very soul...** _

 

Her left hand had been caressing her neck through her musings, and so when she felt a necklace (more like a chain around her neck), she stopped short. Merely brushing her fingers over it made her shiver, and when the pain struck again, she fervently wished her wounds would heal.

_(Not all her wounds were physical)_

She was in an unknown land, with strange people surrounding her, and she couldn't find anyone even remotely familiar. She _had to_ get out of there, find her way somewhere safe, have time to understand what was going on.

 

_**The yellow net had surrounded her, while the red whip dragged her through several worlds...** _

 

She gasped, then, when suddenly the chain felt hot against her skin, and the next shiver that passed through her left behind a nice feeling, as if every wound had in fact healed, and the crushing agony that had plagued her soul since her _not-_ sister's life had faded under her very own hands relented, leaving behind only the ice-cold feeling that had numbed her before the act.

_Had Emiya felt it too, how his heart gave up to the ice surrounding it? Had he felt the steel crushing any sentimentality he could have felt before? His humanity giving up, leaving itself to be buried under the ice ?_

 

The side of Rin Tohsaka that had still managed to keep itself somewhat human, even after killing the only living relative she had had left, surrendered to the _healing_ power that encased it in an icy cage.

 

_The Reality gem would fill the gap left in her soul._

* * *

  _Everything had been easier after the Reality gem had taken her most “human” side._

_Rin Tohsaka didn't deserve to feel human, after all._

 

_“ Are you alright?”_

 

If she had been able to feel something right then, Rin would have wept.

But she couldn't then, she had given her feelings up, buried them under her _magus_ persona, and thus Rin Tohsaka smiled, that perfect smile her _idol_ persona used so often, thanked the woman and walked away from there, the slight coldness of the morning making her walkstraighter.

The people let her pass, their confused stares following her until her figure disappeared from their sight.

It wasn't very often that they found such a girl lying in her very own little crater on a summer morning...

* * *

 A blonde haired man with a piercing red gaze followed the girl from a proper distance, her prana slowly dripping into his being, from the connection that now united them.

 

“ _Uh. A new Master, eh?”_

* * *

  _He was sure he was going to die._

Loki had _felt_ it, the dark nothing consuming him, and even there, knowing that he had done something right, something that maybe, _just maybe,_ would be enough to start to redeem him for what he had done to his brother in New York, he hadn't really wanted to die.

It wasn't the first time he found himself in a similar situation.

_“ Said situation” meaning heavily hurt.  _

* * *

 Loki would never confess it, that's for sure, but everything after those first...

_Days? Weeks? Months?_

_After his time with the Chitauri,_ everything turned into a fiery mass of confusing thoughts.

_And pain, of course._

He could have said it, later, once he was back on Asgard and that blue haze that had been choking him became slim enough to allow him to _think_ , for the first time in an undetermined period of time.

His memories were nothing more than broken fragments, and feelings he could not make sense of.

Even then, he had felt it, that strange connection between the Tesseract and him. In the depths of his madness, that connection had somehow managed to keep him from completely losing himself. It was familiar, somehow, in the same way the Sceptre had been, although the sceptre itself had been tainted by Thanos, and as Loki could deduce, used against him.

It didn't matter.

The Allfather would never believe him anyway.

_Why bother? It's not like he would care..._

 

He had stood his imprisonment patiently, or at least managing to look calm, using his time to try and recover the memories that were still locked in the blue haze, or simply try to make sense of the fragments he already had.

He was able to piece up that he had been tortured, enough to weaken his will to... Control him? That part was still blurred.

And for some reason he couldn't really comprehend, every time he thought about the Tesseract or the Mind gem hidden in his sceptre, a blonde girl appeared in his mind, her bright blue eyes staring at him like a deer in the headlights, as a midgardian would have said.

Her identity was a mystery, something he had deliberately hidden in the depths of his mind...

_Why?_

She was important, he knew, and yet, for some reason, he could only see her in dreams, blurred dreams which content faded in the morning light. She was painful, too, associated as she was with two things that had been used to bring him pain, two things that he had been tortured for.

_The Space and the Mind gems..._

He had the feeling that she wouldn't like what he had done in New York, or before, to Jotunheim. To Thor, and his friends.

 

_“ I'll tell father what you've done today”_

 

“ _I didn't do it for him”_

 

He wondered, as his world blacked out, if maybe what he had just done would be enough. If she would deem him redeemed.

_**Would you be mine? Even after all I've done?** _

* * *

  _He didn't die._

His body had been left behind, and he honestly thought it was better like that. Waking up in Svartalfheim had been an incredibly awful experience. He could feel traces of an energy he identified as the Tesseract's in his body, but the distance had been so much that the same energy that had healed him (he still wasn't sure why he hadn't died) had left him in pain doing so.

At that moment, Loki decided that he had to see it again. _The Tesseract_. It was calling him, even now, and the blonde girl's image danced in the corner of his eyes, taunting him.

A green glow traversed his form then, an Einherjar guard left behind its path.

 

_It's time for your last test , Allfather..._

* * *

  _“... Loki, for all his grave imbalance understood rule as I know I never will. The brutality, the sacrifice... It changes you. I'd rather be a good man than a Great King”_

 

Looking at Thor then, he knew that Odin Allfather wouldn't have reacted well to that. And yet, he couldn't really hurt Thor anymore. Loki had better things to do, and Thor leaving would only make them easier.

 

“ _Is this my son I hear? Or the woman he loves?”_

 

“ _When you speak, do I ever hear Mother's voice?”_

 

 _Frigga_. It was still a sore spot for him, having been unable to save her. His mother. For all that she hadn't really birthed him, she had been a better parenting figure for him than Odin ever was. A sigh left his lips, not having to feign the pain in his face.

 

“ _This is not for Jane, Father. She does not know what I came here to say. Now forbid me to see her or say she can rule at my side, it changes nothing.”_

 

_So, now the perfect son didn't want the throne? Oh, the irony..._

 

“ _One son wanted the Throne too much, another will not take it. Is this my legacy?”_

 

“ _Loki died with honour. I shall try to live the same. Is that not legacy enough?”_

 

Heh, dead? Loki wondered, not for the first time, why exactly hadn't he died when he should have. Was there something tying him to life that he wasn't aware of? Or was it all just an elaborate joke by the Norns?

Thor tried, then, to offer him Mjölnir, and Loki wondered again, what would his brother have done then if he had known that he lived.

_What would he say, if he knew to whom he was offering his most appreciate weapon ?_

 

_“It belongs to you. If you're worthy of it.”_

 

_How much will it take for Mjölnir to leave you?_

 

_“ I shall try to be.”_

 

_“ I cannot give you my blessing, nor can I wish you good fortune”_

 

_That would be awfully awkward after our story, don't you think so, Thor?_

 

_“ I know.”_

 

_“If I were proud of the man my son had become, even that I could not say, I would speak only from my heart. Go, my son.”_

 

_After all, Odin never was good at parenting, was he? He had always been unable to express his “love” for those he called his sons..._

 

_“ Thank you, Father”_

 

Thor departed then, and once he was out of sight, Loki allowed his disguise to fall.

It was time to find the answers he needed, and without Thor near, he would be able to examine the Tesseract without a care in the world, as Heimdall was still locked up for betrayal.

 

_“ No, thank you”_

 

When Loki (now again under the disguise of the Allfather) was almost reaching the Vault, an explosion could be felt from its depths. Loki's calm walk turned into a frenetic race.

_I must reach the Tesseract before...!_

What he found in Odin's Vault made him stop dead on his tracks. _There it was. His answer._

 

_A blonde girl was lying on the floor, right where the Tesseract used to be._


	7. Broken Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll warn right here and now: this is a very harsh chapter. Keep your Kleenex at hand's reach. Or a happy Disney movie, I don't know.  
> 1 "Asgardian Year" = 50 "Midgardian Years".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I must say these last weeks have been rather tiring. What with organizing everything for my next year, in which I'll start Uni... I repeat, that I'm not going to leave this story in the air. Maybe my updates aren't as frequent as before, but that's mostly because I have many, many ideas, and putting them in order is hard. Also, this chapter is mostly about Loki and Eveline. Anyway, here's it, and as always, thanks to Quicksilver1881 for her amazing beta powers.  
> Btw, when speech is between “/whatever/”, the characters are talking telepathically.

When Eveline finally woke up, she wasn't sure _where_ , she was, exactly.

She knew she had done something really tiring, but right then, in the awful daze that clouded her mind, she couldn't remember what that could be. Her whole body hurt, and she wondered for a second if she had managed to get lost in the Summer Palace again.

After all, the last time she had ended up like this had been while exploring said castle, when her recklessness had taken her to the dungeons (where Vasilisa had clearly told her _not to go_ ), ending in a stare contest with a dragon that, for some reason her nine years old mind couldn't comprehend, was locked in said dungeons.

Their stare contest went on until a strange movement made her look somewhere else, and the next thing she knew, she found herself dancing to keep the dragon from eating her. She danced to entertain him (yes, it was a _him_ ) until the very next morning, when finally the staff caught wind of her missing status. Niall had been furious, but given that _technically_ “Don't go to the dungeons” had been more of a suggestion than an order, and in the end she hadn't even put a foot outside, Eveline had managed to get out unscathed... Except from the pain in her body, for twisting around and around non-stop, and some minor burns for being so close to the dragon (the healers told her no mark would be left).

Niall would later tell her that the dragon was the custodian of Alfheim's very heart, about which he only said that it _“was a time treasure”._

However, she just _knew_ this wasn't Niall's palace, and the very moment she opened her eyes, she _saw him_.

His image was blurry, as if Loki had been covered in plastic wrap, and for a whole second, she wondered why that could be. Then she remembered how Niall used to look while wearing an illusion, thus making the correct deductions.

They were alone in the room, but she didn't know if someone could be eavesdropping on them, so she tried to talk to him in the most secure way she knew: directly in his mind.

“ _/_ _Loki?/”_

 

He was startled, but he hid it well. The coldness in his mind turned more pronounced, but somehow it just helped her crescent migraine, so she merely smiled at him. She was sure she looked quite bad, tired to death as she was, but he didn't seem appalled at her current image.

 

“ _I'm Odin Allfather, girl. May I ask what were you doing in my vault?”_

 

“ _/Careful. We're being watched. Who are you?/”_

 

It was like a dagger through her chest, but she managed to keep her smile up.

 

“ _You put me there, sir. When my father gifted me to you, in hopes that you would keep me safe from harm in your vault. Alfheim was in war, then”_

 

“ _/Eveline. Eveline Brigant./”_

 

“ _/I couldn't remember your name. Did I ever hear it? You father must have been incredibly stealthy, my dear, for there's no sign of you in any document I've read about Alfheim. And my mind seems to have buried you in the depths of my being. Tell me, why would I have gone to such extremes to protect your memory?/”_

 

Eveline bit her lip, memories rushing through her mind in barely a fraction of a second.

_He had been hurt, badly._

_And now... Is he telling me that his mind buried his memories of me to keep them safe?_

 

“ _I was locked up in the Tesseract.”_

* * *

 He had taken the woman in his arms to the healing rooms, from which he ordered Heimdall's release, knowing that he wouldn't be able to keep watch on Asgard while she was unconscious. Fortunately, the guardian merely went back to his post, and Loki wondered for a second if maybe he had been too preoccupied with his own problems as to keep a constant watch on him.

She stayed unconscious for two days, during which he barely left her side

He remembered more and more with every time his eyes were able to see her, but there was something, in the way she was lying there, so pale it couldn't be healthy, her golden hair a halo around her face, that told him she shouldn't be like that.

He remembered electric blue eyes, with purple streaks, and a mysterious fire dancing in her pupils, so seeing her so... Vulnerable, yes, made him feel things he had long ago given up on feeling, especially after discovering that he was a Jötunn.

Loki wasn't a strange to... _those_ kind of relationships -Sigyn was the most important example-. But... Right then, being at Eveline's side... It was familiar and unknown at the same time.

While he waited for her to wake up, Loki remembered the times when he thought he had just known love, when he was barely 550 years old, and found who would be his wife, Sigyn.

* * *

 Loki had just reached the part of his seiðr training in which a partner was needed.

Sigyn had been a seiðr practitioner too, visiting Asgard from Vanaheim in order to have access to its great library, and they met there, after both of them had reached for the same book at the same time.

It seemed silly, really, but he hadn't been able to keep himself from getting lost in those marvellous electric blue eyes, or in how her golden locks framed her face. To him, she was the most perfect being in the whole universe.

 

_“ Do you want to be my wife?”_

 

The words had been out before he was even aware of having thought them.

Sigyn had been his trusted companion for fifty years already, and he really didn't see why they would need any more time to make it official. Or permission.

Loki wanted her, and every time they were near, he felt a warmness that nothing else had been able to cause. He thought it could be affection. And he knew Sigyn loved him.

 

_Why not? I already care for her. Why would I need “love”? Could this be it, and my inexperience is unable to recognise it?_

Anyway, he wasn't ready to let her go, and their seiðr activities went so well when they worked together...

She had smiled, looking up at him from between his legs, caressing his chest deliberately slowly, and with a smirk that rivalled his, before whispering an answer that _really_ warmed his heart.

 

“ _It will be my pleasure, my dearest prince...”_

* * *

 They had married the very next night, a Saturday, and Loki managed to get a _goði_ to officiate the wedding.

For the ceremony, Loki had managed to win Odin's sword (as he wasn't as taken with hammers as Thor, and Odin had Gungnir), and dutifully gave it to Sigyn, who would probably bear his children someday, and she gave him a new sword, to symbolize their new beginning, as a married couple.

With their rings on their hands and their hands over the two swords, they said their vows and gave each other their rings.

Both were smiling, and Sigyn let happy tears roll down to her lips, seeing that Loki himself was trying to keep from doing the same.

Once this was finally done, they couldn't keep themselves from kissing each other, and the _goði_ left them to enjoy their new life.

Hidden from Odin and Heimdall's watch, Loki used the secret paths between the worlds to take them to Vanaheim, and in the home that once belonged to Sigyn's family (which had died long ago, as she was an orphan only daughter), the couple enjoyed their first night as husband and wife.

 

The morning after, Loki gave her a beautiful necklace made from gold and sapphires, and helped Sigyn to braid her hair.

* * *

 When Odin Allfather found out, he had been _furious_.

Loki was sure that if Frigga herself hadn't intervened, the Allfather would have banished him from Asgard then and there.

* * *

 Merely fifteen years after their marriage, Sigyn had two beautiful children.  _Narfi_ and _Váli_.

The birth had been complicated, but the healers assured that everything was perfectly fine with the mother.

Yet, the next morning, Sigyn had long ago left the world of the living, and Loki woke up with his wife's corpse between his arms.

* * *

 His rage simmered for the next fifteen years, raising his sons as well as he could, while the darkest part of him plotted the demise of the healers who should have _healed_ Sigyn, the demise of those who had unknowingly killed her by their carelessness.

Once both Narfi and Váli were old enough to be autonomous, Loki struck.

* * *

 The healers were slaughtered, not with any weapon, just his bare hands, and Loki was left between their entrails, laughing in a way that terrified those who heard it.

Thor, Lady Sif and the Warrior Three found him there, laughing and crying, an expression of utter desperation on his face, while his hands moved endlessly through the mess, tearing whatever had managed to keep a semblance of a form.

 

Odin's punishment had been terrible.

Narfi had been killed, and with his entrails was Loki held in a midgardian cliff, a venomous snake pouring venom into his eyes from well above him, Váli turned into a wolf, the same wolf who tore his own brother's neck apart, before being banished altogether from Asgard.

This had been Odin's punishment, for Loki to suffer as described for fifty midgardian years, one for every healer murdered in his grief fuelled rage.

 

Once said fifty years had passed, Odin healed his adoptive son's eyes, and allowed him to finally bury his son, Narfi.

To soothe his grief and give him something that would take his mind from his lost son, Váli, who Loki had been unable to find, Frigga sent him to Jotunheim, where a mysterious Jötunn was wreaking havoc, as Asgard's agent, to make said Jötunn stop her wrongdoings in whichever way he saw necessary.

* * *

 He felt hollow.

It had been his fault, right? He had murdered the healers, so he and he alone should have been punished.

But no, instead, Váli had been turned into a wolf, and _Narfi_...

Loki told himself that the Allfather couldn't have known what would happen once Váli had been turned into a wolf. He told himself that having used Narfi's entrails, which had turned into asgardian iron while locking him to the cliff in Midgard, had been only a way to remind him about the unfortunate consequences that allowing himself to be guided by rage could cause. The alternative was too cruel to admit.

Wandering through Jotunheim, Loki wondered where was Váli, and if he would ever get to see him again.

At least, until he found the heart.

Apparently, he was late.

The mysterious Jötunn had been thoroughly dismembered, and if he had been able to keep his mind focused, he would have tried to follow the traces of the killers before they were erased by the snow, but once his eyes saw _the heart_ , he was lost.

He moved to it, as if under a spell, unable to stop his progress, and his hands raised the half-cooked organ from the pyre that most probably had already consumed everything else.

It was a familiar and yet unknown feeling, that for some reason made him think about Sigyn, and he felt the hollowness again, so painful he fell to his knees, the fire put out with a thought, and he stayed like that for some minutes, feeling the hollowness Sigyn's death had left in his soul, staring at the half-cooked heart in his hands as if it could have the answers he needed.

When he _bit_ it, the hollowness started to recede.

* * *

 Loki could barely hide himself in a near cave.

After consuming the heart, dizziness had taken over his mind. He felt feverish, and his whole body was trembling, but he felt somewhat _complete_.

He knew the heart had to have something in common with Sigyn, but the only name that came to mind with the heart, that heart that had invaded his mind with pieces of memories that weren't his own, was _Angrbo_ _ð_ _a_.

Even then, other... _effects_ were known much later.

He had felt compelled to stay in that cave, the cave that after some exploration, in dizzy bits of frenzy when Angrboða's memories took over, he had discovered as Angrboða's home. Thus, when barely two months later he started to... _show_ , he had at least the breather of not being in Asgard, where his ability to shapeshift was looked down on.

The thing is, he hadn't even _noticed_ that he had shapeshifted.

Loki thought that it was merely because he felt just as comfortable in her female form as in his male form. Though most probably, her carelessness was due to her still frenzied state, lost in memories given to her via half-cooked heart.

_One day, the memories showed a blonde girl, running through the woods..._

_A purple light blinded her, and her soul broke in pieces._

 

_**“** **I will be the monster they made me be!”** _

 

_**“** **I will be the person I wished to be!”** _

 

 _And then, once two pieces of her soul had left her, with a muffled scream, face down on the ground, the blonde girl collapsed_.

* * *

 In the cave, with only her magic to help, Loki gave birth to three babies.

 _Fenrir_ , a cub that mere minutes after being born, was already growing to a panther's height, _Jörmungandr_ , a snake that, just as his elder brother, started to grow mere minutes after being born, and _Hel_ , the only one of the siblings that somewhat resembled an asgardian shape, even if half of her body was a dark blue colour.

Loki, exhausted after the birth (and the amount of magic used to properly carry it on), could barely hold her babies against her chest, Hel's face resting in the crook of her neck, Jörmungandr coiling himself around her waist and Fenrir pressing himself against her side.

Loki had only fifty years with them, until he was unable to keep shielding his babies with his magic from Heimdall's gaze.

* * *

 Odin was, as expected, furious, when Heimdall informed him of Loki's children.

Brought before the Allfather in private with his sons (Loki thought that her male form would serve her better if she had to fight for her babies in Asgard), the Trickster readied himself for the verdict.

He had known there would be no way to convince the Allfather once he had passed judgement, because the private summoning meant that no one could vouch for him, so using his eloquence to try and bring the jury to his cause would be pointless.

There was no one there who could be convinced.

Even Thor, who Loki was sure he could rope into helping him, was absent, apparently on a “diplomatic mission” with Frigga in Vanaheim.

 

Odin Allfather declared his babies “monsters”, and taking advantage of Loki's chained state, he passed judgement.

Jörmungandr was tossed into Midgard's greatest ocean, Fenrir was bound in Niflheim and Hel was given a realm in the same realm, which would be known as Hel in her name, presiding over those who have died being nor honoured nor dishonoured.

Loki fought, shouted and tried everything he could think about to release himself from his chains, but his lips were sewn together, and his chains blocked his magic. In no time he understood that those chains were the same that had bound him to the cliff during his previous punishment, those made out of his dear Narfi's entrails, which turned into asgardian iron in appearance, whilst holding much more power over him than any true asgardian iron. They bound his magic, and no amount of strength could break them.

Thus, Loki had to see how his children were banished, unable to save them, and once his lips were free again, because in desperation he had shredded his own lips, freeing them from their sewn lock, he swore that he would bring the very end to Asgard and the Nine Realms altogether, for the injustices befallen on him and his children.

 

 _**“** **I'll bring** _ _**you** **Ragnarök, Allfather! If it's the last thing I do!”** _

 

Odin then took the most drastic of the drastic measures, and erased all memory of Angrboða and the children her heart had impregnated Loki with (as her very soul was hidden in the heart). He erased thus all memory of them, thinking that this would stop Loki from remembering forever, stop him from bringing, as he had sworn, the doom of Asgard.

Unconscious, after the brutal mind control Odin had imparted in him with the powers sacrificing his eye gave him, Loki was finally released from his chains, brought to his room, believing, as he would later, that Sigyn had simply married another, and died at childbirth.

_Until he finally met Eveline..._

* * *

 The memories resurfaced slowly, and when he confronted the Allfather, the effort of blocking Loki's memories -as he had nowhere near the force to try to erase them again- put him in Odinsleep.

Aware that her children were still too young to rule, Frigga was named regent until Odin's new awake.

Loki was, again, unaware of the true fate of his first love, Sigyn, or the events related to Angrboða's half-cooked heart... but he remembered a blonde woman, a blonde woman in a blue dress, her beautiful face standing out thanks to the moonlight. Her eyes, an electric blue with purple streaks, a mysterious fire dancing in her pupils...

And by instinct, he hid his memory of her into the depths of his very being, where no amount of magic would ever erase it from his mind.

* * *

 He remembered her, now.

In the corridors of the Summer palace, in Alfheim's very centre.

The most beautiful being his eyes had ever seen.

_The Fairy Princess..._

He had known, right there, that they were meant to be. He felt it in his very soul, his whole being, _she was his. As much as he was hers._

 

_**“** **Would you be mine?”** _

 

The answer had been written in her eyes, and they had made it official with a heated kiss.

A voice had interrupted their moment, and even if he wanted to hunt whoever had done so and end their miserable lives... Loki knew it had been for the best.

Alfheim was still too raw, the spirits too high after their last war, and the last thing Asgard needed was a war with the Summer court because the Summer King had found an asgardian prince doing his daughter against a wall in a corridor.

 

Licking his lips, he told himself that he would have her someday.

* * *

  _In the meantime, once her memory had been safely stored and Odin had blocked his memories, he allowed himself to get lost in as many women as he could, trying to fill the void he felt. The burning frenzy she had awaken in him..._

_She was making him go crazy and, really? Couldn't he just... Visit her, someday?_

_If only he could have those lips again..._

* * *

 That very morning, as all the others, the blonde woman had been scrupulously cleaned, and dressed with rich asgardian clothes.

But when he went to see her, she woke up.

 _She woke up_ , and he was struck again by her beautiful eyes, that gaze that had him pinned to the ground, and he had to remind himself that he couldn't kiss her like _this_ , because he was still sporting Odin's form, and... And...

 

 _“/_ _Loki?/”_

It startled him, hearing her voice in his mind.

And then, of course, he finally acknowledged that he _had been having so many dirty thoughts, and please, if there's mercy in this universe she won't see those..._

He could _feel_ Heimdall's gaze on them.

 

_“ I'm Odin Allfather, girl. May I ask what were you doing in my vault?”_

 

_“/Careful. We're being watched. Who are you?/”_

 

He tried to send the thought with as much clarity as possible, and seeing her slight wince, he comprehended how that could sound.

_No, no, no, I remember, I remember, I swear I remember you!_

_But oh, your name, your name, my dearest, did I ever learn it?_

 

“ _You put me there, sir. When my father gifted me to you, in hopes that you would keep me safe from harm in your vault. Alfheim was in war, then”_

 

_“/Eveline. Eveline Brigant./”_

 

_Eveline. “The Desired one”. “The Light”. A proper name, that's for sure..._

 

_“/I couldn't remember your name. Did I ever hear it? You father must have been incredibly stealthy, my dear , for there's no sign of you in any document I've read about Alfheim. And my mind seems to have buried you in the depths of my being. Tell me, why would I have gone to such extremes to protect your memory?/”_

 

She bit her lip, and he _told himself to_ _**focus** _.

 

“ _I was locked up in the Tesseract.”_

 

It all made sense, in a twisted kind of way. Because he _knew_ what he had to do now. His illusions were now able to trick even Heimdall, after all...

He took her hand, letting his illusion of Odin fade for her, and once she was on her feet, he kissed her.

She received his kiss with a slight smirk, that he could just _feel_ against his lips, before interlacing her fingers in his hair, her arms bringing him closer, and he _remembered_.

 

“ _Eveline... Eveline... Eveline...”_

 

Her name was a prayer that he couldn't stop repeating, his hands on her back, both pressing their bodies against the other as much as they could with clothes still on.

They separated, barely, and he repeated the question he had made 750 midgardian years ago:

“ _Would you be mine?”_

 

And she smiled mischievously.

“ _It will be my pleasure, my dearest prince...”_

 

* * *

 

The memories resurfaced slowly...

 


	8. Dreams...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of wanted to balance the large amounts of Angst from the past chapters with something heartwarming that will help this fic go on through the dark times yet to come. Turns out I'm better with Dark and Angsty settings than with Fluff and let's not even try humour. Well. Anyway, I tried, and that's something, right?

He had wanted to hate her.

After all, if he was right (and Fintan was _pretty_ sure he was , she looked _too much_ like his father to not be related more closely thanby the expected great grandfather-great granddaughter relationship), she was Niall's idea, his replacement. And in a way, that hurt more than having been exiled.

It also meant something big had to have happened to make Niall disregard the pact with the Ronan. Fintan _knew_ his father wouldn't risk starting another war, not after the slaughter the last one had b rought to Alfheim . The Summer Court would need millenniums to regain numbers even vaguely close to the ones before the Blood Wars. _If_ it ever did. Fintan certainly doubted it.

But she had a unique kind of beauty, that cuteness that would melt even the most iced heart, and he found himself unable to harbour any kind of negative feelings towards the child. After all, she was already the target of too much hate.

So he finished his barrier around the portal, knowing that the girl would feel drawn to that forest clearing, and planted several fae flowers all around said clearing, letting them borrow a bit of his magic to grow faster, and in less than a week, one could already see the beautiful canvas the colourful flowers created, with all the colours known to humans and more, their nature as plants from the Summer Lands letting them grow by merely being near the portal, disregarding the weather from the human world.

The whole process left him tired and somewhat sleepy, but when _she_ found the clearing, the beautiful happiness on her face made it all worth it.

* * *

 

Kariya Matou was still able to remember happier times.

Every time the pain seemed to be about to end him, he would remember Rin, dragging Sakura into one game or another, their happy laughs being caught in the wind like the most perfect melodies, orthe sisters sharing mischievous glances after doing something they weren't supposed to do, and even their little quarrels, like that fairly amusing one about the superiority of chocolate over strawberry ice-cream that ended with the girls laughing madly, covered in said ice-creams, until Aoi made them go to take a shower, before Tokiomi could find them in such an “inelegant” state.

Those were good times.

And now, even if the three females he loved above everything else were suffering for Tokiomi's stupidity (or cruelness, he wasn't fully sure which), he swore he would manage to take Sakura back with her family.

He may have refused to take on the Matou legacy, making that old worm, Zouken, search for alternatives to keep the bloodline alive, but even then, _he_ should be the one to pay the price. _He_ would fight in the Holy Grail War. _He_ would fight for Sakura's freedom. With Berserker by his side, he would win, Sakura would be free from Zouken Matou's claws, and Rin would have her little sister back.

He would kill Tokiomi Tohsaka. The war would allow him a chance to do so without any major drawbacks, and so Aoi and her daughters would finally be free to live as they wished, without that cold-hearted magus dictating their lives.

Kariya could almost see it, Rin and Sakura growing up together, free to live as they wished to, Aoi smiling fully again, without having to feign that losing her youngest daughter hadn't hurt her deeply.

He would fight, and he would win.

Because if he lost... _If he lost..._

Kariya didn't let that thought fester inside of him.

He would win. He would win. _He would win_.

He imagined Rin and Sakura running away, happy and together again, hand in hand...

_And then Zouken's insects drowned him again..._

* * *

 

Susan knew her time was reaching its end.

She had been there, seeing the story of the D'Ancanto's evolve, and after her beloved son had died, the only thing she could truly say she felt sorry for, was leaving little Anna Marie alone with the hellish situation Milo D'Ancanto had put his family in after Astryd Stendhal's death.

She still remembered the good times, when Mr. Milo still held a warmness in his heart that not even his fanatic parents had been able to take away from him. Susan remembered the time when Mr. Milo had quietly apologized to her after his parents had been demeaning her with their racist jokes during a family dinner, eyes down as if asking for forgiveness.

She had smiled at him that night, heart warm knowing that the golden heart her mama had told her Mr. Milo had was truly there.

 

“Don't ya worry, Mister Milo. Ah know, ah know ya aren't like that.”

 

The jokes and the insults had hurt her, yes, but she knew Mr. Milo wasn't like his parents. At least, not then.

Things had gotten even harder for him when he married Miss Stendhal, a woman no one knew much about, except that she apparently came from Europe, as his parents had wanted to marry him with a woman from a highly respected family in Caldelcott County, Miss Priscilla Raven, but Mr. Milo had held himself together, defending his wife's honour no matter what.

Miss Astryd Stendhal had come from a strange family, that much Susan knew, but even with her quirks, the woman had always been polite and had a warmness not many could hold, and as Mr. Milo would sometimes say, his wife's heart was big enough to love everyone in the household.

_She was too good for this world._

It had been a good, if short, marriage.

Mr. Milo had loved his wife with all his heart, and Mrs. Astryd had loved him back wholeheartedly.

But good things don't last, and things would soon take a wrong turn.

It all seemed to go well, at first.

Mrs Astryd had survived the birth, and little Anna Marie was a very healthy baby... But Susan had known, even then, that something was wrong. She could see it, how as the days went by, the lady would only be more and more tired.

She had seen her, one day, holding little Anna Marie in her arms, the moonlight drawing shadows in her angelic face, as she whispered something to her daughter.

 

“ _You won't remember me, will you, my precious? I'm already drifting in the wind... Is that you? Is that your power?_ Must I die for you to live? If so... Oh, then I'll go happy, my precious baby. I already hear you, calling my soul. It was true, then? Oh, if only I could see you grow...”

 

Susan had been scared then.

She couldn't fully comprehend what was going on. In her haste, she had knocked out a hairbrush, revealing her presence to the lady.

She would never forget the terrified look in the lady's emerald eyes.

 

“ _Susan! Oh, Susan, wait!”_

 

She ran away, that night. But she never told a soul about it.

* * *

 

Mrs. Astryd found her two days later, finally alone in the gazebo, her husband away on a business trip to Jackson, and Susan found herself unable to avoid her.

 

“ _Susan... Would you like to hear a story?”_

 

She remembered, that day in the gazebo, and the story of a woman from another planet, a _vanir_ , as Mrs. Astryd had called herself, who had received a prophecy by Those Who Sit Above in Shadow, in a dream, a prophecy that marked her as the one who would birth a powerful being, a powerful being that would kill her slowly to keep itself alive.

Those Who Sit Above in Shadow had showed themselves to her because she was deemed a _threat_. She shouldn't be allowed to give life to that powerful being. A being that was supposed to “disrupt the life of those around it”. She should be summarily executed.

But there had been a woman, a very, very mysterious woman, one who called herself Akira.

 

“ _She told me she was time itself. That she was space. That my daughter had to be born, because she was key to keep the proper balance of the world. That Those Who Sit Above in Shadow had disrupted to balance, and had to be stopped. That my daughter would hold my soul in her heart. That I would be loved by a midgardian like no one could ever love me before. And so I let her take me here...”_

 

It was a strange story.

Deep down, Susan wondered if her fatigue was making Mrs. Astryd rave, but kept her mouth shut. Even if Mrs. Astryd was talking nonsense, she would listen, because it was clear to her then that the woman wouldn't survive to see the next day, and that no doctor would be able to help her.

Astryd D'Ancanto was dying, and Susan had to be there for her.

 

“ _I met a man, barely a year after Akira had left me in this planet, and after six months, I knew I loved him. My Milo... Oh, Susan, how could I ever explain how much I love him? How much he loves me? And yet, I knew, I knew, this had to be done...”_

 

She was having trouble breathing, now, and Susan held that woman, that angel, on her arms, unable now to stop her tears from falling. Mrs. Astryd was smiling, her face paling already, her emerald eyes losing their light with every passing second, and Susan wanted to scream, to ask God for mercy, because her lady didn't deserve to die like this, because Mr. Milo didn't deserve to return home to his wife's corpse, because little Anna Marie deserved to grow with her mother...

But she knew, oh, she knew, that God had left this angel of his on Earth for too long, and it was time for her to return to Heaven, even if she left her pained family behind.

_God works in mysterious ways..._

Mrs. Astryd's life was leaving quickly, and yet, the woman was able to ask for a last wish:

 

“ _Susan... Susan, please, please, take care of my baby. Please... I beg you... Take care of my baby...”_

 

And the lady was never able to hear her answer, but right then and there Susan swore she would take care of little Anna Marie as if she had birthed the girl herself.

 

Six months after Mr. Milo lost his wife, he married Priscilla Raven, if only to get rid of his parent's constant pressure. And when the woman had at least her place sure as Milo D'Ancanto's wife, she made sure to erase every single photo of the previous Mrs. D'Ancanto.

Susan was unable to stop her from doing so, and even when she told Mr. Milo about it, he had only stared at her with a deathly glare.

 

“ _Priscilla is my wife. Whatever she chooses to do with the household, it's her problem. Don't try to overdo your position here, Susan.”_

 

He had died inside. Every bit of warmness he had ever held had died with Mrs. Astryd. And for the first time in her life, Susan stared at Mr. Milo and was reminded of his father. Because from that day on, Mr. Milo turned more and more like him.

 

Her only light had been little Anna Marie, who was like a living painting of her mother. Her true mother.

She was pained for having to leave her, but Priscilla D'Ancanto had managed to make her choose. And at least, she told herself as she forced the concentrated cyanide down her throat, it was her, and not Anna Marie.

 

“ _You chose well, old woman. Now your precious Anna Marie won't die by my hand. Aren't you happy?”_

 

Priscilla would have gloated more, but the woman was already suffering too much to hear her.

Thus, she left her there, knowing the servants would dispose shortly of her body, and smiled to herself knowing _Anna Marie_ would have a very nasty surprise upon returning home.

* * *

 

Rogue woke up, a bit confused, to the lovely smell of freshly made coffee.

In no time, though, she remembered her actual location, in part thanks to the voice of the man who had been by her side during these extremely confusing weeks.

 

“ _My dearest Marie, breakfast is ready!”_

 

Pietro went back into Rogue's room holding a tray with what right now looked to her like the best breakfast ever, a mischievous tilt in his lips when she started with the coffee, before sitting right by her side in the bed, still holding the tray as if mimicking a butler, and she couldn't keep herself from smiling back, feeding him a bacon slice while finishing her coffee.

It wasn't that they were a couple, not exactly. At least, Rogue told herself that right now they were in “best friends” phase.

Also, he still couldn't remember anything from before she woke him up, and waking up in what really looked like a secret lab, unable to discern how they had got there (she knew the lab was HYDRA's, but that didn't mean she knew who or where HYDRA was, because _Bernhard Eichel_ 's memories had told her that said organisation had been infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D. for a very long time), both deemed it better if they tried to stay low for a while.

Pietro had taken her far away from the base, away from the labs and the cold room, away from the corpses (the carcasses she had voided to fill him up),all the way to France, where they had remained for some days, getting proper clothes and trying to know each other.

It was easier when they found out she could “send” things to him, by merely brushing her skin to his, which certainly helped them to learn French.

When she touched anyone else, their memories and life force would be drained into her, like with Cody or Bernhard Eichel, but Pietro wasn't like that. She could choose to _send_ things to him, as she had when she woke him up, and Rogue recognised that without him by her side, she would probably have lost her mind, or merely wandered from place to place, not knowing what was going on.

As he couldn't remember his life before her, she showed him hers, and when she finally got the courage to talk to him about the others, the blond woman with blue-purplish eyes and the blue-eyed brunette, he wondered if maybe, just maybe, those two could give them some answers.

Rogue had been trying to reach them, but it left her exhausted, so Pietro made sure to keep her from overdoing it as much as he could.

The night before had been a perfect example. They had arrived to Canterbury that morning, and Pietro had found a nice house for them to stay, at least until the owners got back from wherever they were, and Rogue had had a feeling, as if one of the girls she had seen in her dreams was near, so she had tried to contact her to no avail.

Pietro had finally managed to bring her back by singing a lullaby to her, in a language she somehow understood.

She had hugged him then, and before she knew, sleep had taken her over. Thankfully, Pietro didn't seem to mind being used as a pillow if his current demeanour was to go by.

So they finished their breakfast, and after finishing their daily morning preparations -she loved long, hot showers-, and dressing up, they left the house with the meagre possessions and enjoyed a nice walk around the city.

When walking by the Roman museum, Rogue stopped dead in her tracks.

Right next to one of the columns, Rin Tohsaka stood almost perfectly still, as if trying to mimic a statue.

And just when Pietro was about to ask if there was something wrong, Rin stared right into her eyes.

The pure emptiness of those sapphire eyes scared her more than anything ever had.

 


End file.
